• PRINCESS 

AND 

^Wl LG R I 

E1IGL 





^BiRBB 




CAROLINE-SHELDON 




Class _DAi3.Q_ 

Book S JTH 

Copyright^ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



PRINCESS and PILGRIM 

IN ENGLAND 




THE MASTER OF RUGBY. 



PRINCESS AND 



PILGRIM 



IN ENGLAND 



BY 



CAROLINE SHELDON 




WASHINGTON. D. C. 

THE LUCAS-LINCOLN COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Conies Received 
MAY 12 1904 

Ceoyrteht Entry 



V 



ro^- X-i o o t 

GLASS a, xXo. No. 
COPY B 



Copyright, 1904, 

By 

The Lucas-Lincoln Company 



" Coelum non animum mutant qui trans 
mare currant." 

Horace, Epistola X. 

'' When I was at home I was in a better 
place, but travelers must be content." 

"As You Like It." 



PRINCESS AND PILGRIM IN ENG- 
LAND. 

CHAPTER I. 

CHIEFLY INTRODUCTORY. 

Princess and I have traveled much to- 
gether, by land and sea, in sunshine and in 
storm, in far countries and in our own be- 
loved land. We know all each other's little 
ways — a most desirable thing for traveling 
companions; better still, we have learned not 
to waste time and energy in trying to make 
each other over; we have further learned to 
avoid friction by refraining from the perni- 
cious practice of trying to make each other 
comfortable according to the ideas of the ex- 
perimenter without regard to the taste of the 
victim. 

If Princess chooses to go to bed at eight 
o'clock, she does so; quietly and peaceably, 
without ostentation or unpleasant display of 
virtue. She never makes disagreebale re- 
marks about persons who burn candles, oil, 



8 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

or gas to unseemly hours of the night, nor 
is she ever guilty of hinting that early rising 
is Conducive to health, wealth and wisdom. 
(My respect for Benjamin Franklin would be 
far greater if he had never written that mean 
little rhyme; it is the one manifestation of 
weakness on the part of an otherwise power- 
ful intellect). 

If more persons would adopt the amiable 
plan of the Princess, doubtless many divorces 
might be avoided. However, this is mere 
theory, founded upon observation only, not 
reinforced by experience. 

I have conferred upon this friend of mine 
the title of Princess because she has an air, 
not arrogant, but with a nameless flavor of 
distinction, which causes railway officials, ser- 
vants, hotel porters, and the rest of their 
tribe, to attend with cheerful readiness to her 
slightest wish. With myself all is different. 
These persons treat me politely and comply 
rather promptly with my requests, but al- 
ways with a touch of condescension, as if they 
considered me an untaught, inexperienced 



IN ENGLAND. g 

person, astray from home, and unable without 
aid to find way back. 

We are both fond of purple and fine linen, 
though we own little of either; but Princess 
is aristocratic in a golf skirt, a shirt-waist, and 
a sailor hat, whereas I, in such attire, look 
like a parlor-maid out of a place. She is 
canny and thrifty; I, on the other hand, but 
for her restraining influence, should probably 
spend my all on fascinating old books, photo- 
graphs, and casts, being thereby reduced to 
beg my way home. 

Princess never really objects to the books, 
on the contrary, she often encourages me to 
buy good ones ; but occasionally, mindful of 
the limited space in our three-room suite, she 
looks disapprovingly at some rather large 
cast, which she thinks I meditate buying, and 
says in low, even, but expressive tones — 

"Peregrina, where do you think of putting 
that object when you get it home?" 

We have crossed the ocean together many 
times ; now on fast steamers, occasionally on 
slow ones ; sometimes in the first cabin ; 
again, in the second ; and we have even gone 



io PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

so far as to consider trying the steerage, 
"just for once." 

This is the way the idea came to us. With 
a view to economizing and at the same time 
shortening the agonies of sea-sickness for 
Princess, who, despite much paying of trib- 
ute, has never been able to put herself on a 
friendly footing with the powers of the deep, 
we had taken up our quarters in the second 
cabin of an "ocean greyhound." 

The first cabin people seemed to be having 
rather a dull time. We did not hear of any 
celebrated actress among them, any Ameri- 
can heiress who had recently invested in a 
title, nor yet of a divorcee or other centre 
of scandal. Our "betters" sat around on the 
deck very quietly, not having, apparently, 
the energy necessary for making explorations 
"abaft the rail." This is usually a favorite 
amusement of certain among them, who 
regard the other persons on board as belong- 
ing to a different order of creation from 
themselves, a sort of zoological collection. 

With us, matters were quite different. 
Across the table from Princess and myself, 



IN ENGLAND. " 

there sat at meals a little English variety act- 
ress. Her coiffure was copied from that of a 
Scotch terrier, and her h's were scattered all 
over decks, cabins, companion-ways, and 
gangways. She flirted indiscriminately with 
everything masculine that came within her 
reach; told many anecdotes, credible and 
otherwise, of her friends and kinsfolk in "the 
profession," and was altogether most amus- 
ing and entertaining. 

Also, titles not being confined to the first 
cabin, there was among us a Swedish count, 
several returning consuls, two Arctic explor- 
ers, and clergymen of every denomination 
known to the church militant. We derived 
much instruction and entertainment from the 
conversation and behavior of our fellow voy- 
agers, and only feared that we ourselves were 
not sufficiently interesting to make an ade- 
quate return. One evening the fact was 
brought home to us that despite all our ad- 
vantages of location, we might have done 
better still. 

Through the hatchway astern floated up 
the strains of "Money Musk," played with 



12 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

much expression and verve on a good violin ; 
and, keeping time to the music, was heard 
the rhythm of dancing feet. The sound did 
not suggest the languid glide of the fashion- 
able ball-room, but the energetic rush, swing, 
and stamp of your true dancer, never bored 
or indifferent, but entering into the joy of the 
hour with spirit and gaiety. The singing of 
glees and choruses followed the dancing ; and 
then a girl declaimed to the delight of the 
audience, if one might judge by the hearty 
applause. 

Feasting our eyes upon the splendors^of a 
June sunset over an opal sea, and the later 
glories of the moonrise, and listening to this 
varied program, we agreed that while the 
second cabin was more interesting than the 
first, the odds of real enjoyment were with 
the steerage when the steamer is eastward 
bound. 

Then we bethought ourselves of another 
steamer in which we had crossed the At- 
lantic; a slow-moving vessel, whose deliber- 
ate progress gave us ample time to learn 
much of the occupations, dispositions, and 



IN ENGLAND. 13 

histories of our fellow travelers. On this pas- 
sage I had, with interest and profit to my- 
self, spent much time on the steerage deck. 

There was one child among the passengers 
in that part of the ship who attracted special 
attention. She was a little Irish girl, and, 
her name being unknown to her admirers in 
the cabin, she was, by common consent, call- 
ed Katy. She was a tiny creature, five years 
old perhaps, with a square, undeniably Irish 
face ; she was not pretty, but very attractive, 
because of the winning smile that revealed 
dimples in the firm, sun-browned cheeks, 
kindly curves about the mouth, and a soft 
glow in the deep blue eyes. Below her short 
print gown were seen bare, sturdy legs and 
feet, browned by sun and wind; her head 
was covered by a little wool shawl, knotted 
under her chin ; and her chubby hands were 
scrupulously clean. 

Katy often played ring-toss all by herself; 
and so sweet and winsome was the face under 
the little shawl, that we greatly enjoyed 
watching the tiny maid at her solitary game. 
The first time we saw her try, every ring 



i 4 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

failed to reach the pole; but, nothing 
daunted, she began again, and before we left 
had succeeded in landing each circle exactly 
where it ought to go. 

"That little girl," observed the Preacher, 
"has three excellent traits: patience, perse- 
verance, and a sunny temper." 

We laid the moral to heart, and moved on. 

This fashion of naming our fellow passen- 
gers according to our fancy is a very con- 
venient one. Doubtless the persons con- 
cerned would not recognize themselves 
under the titles we apply to them, which is 
well; but we understand each other, and 
grow to have a kindness for them, names 
and all ; in fact, we are often disappointed to 
find that their lawful appellations seem to be 
misfits. 

We scarcely ever leave a ship carrying with 
us anything but kindly thoughts of the people 
who have shared with us the pleasures, priv- 
ileges, discomforts and joys of our voyage. 
Human nature is, in the main, lovable; and 
unpretentious folk often show each other 
much good-will when closely associated for 



IN ENGLAND. 15 

even a short time. Besides, the voyage is a 
rare one on which we fail to see the begin- 
ning of one or more romances, some of which 
never go beyond the bud, while others blos- 
som under our very eyes; for it is astonish- 
ing how the passengers of the same ship 
meet each other over and over again after 
landing, and, as every right-minded woman 
is always interested in a love affair, we are 
always open-eyed to watch the progress of 
any that we have noted previously. There is 
something really beautiful about the feminine 
interest in matters of this kind. It makes 
no difference how many matches a woman 
has seen turn out badly, she always hopes 
that the next one to come under her obser- 
vation may result in the ideal fashion. This 
perennial faith is one of the essential ingre- 
dients of the "eternal womanly." 

A sea voyage is a continual feast for the 
eye. The colors of sky and water vary from 
hour to hour, from moment to moment. I 
once tried to keep a diary of my voyage in 
water color, recording the face of each day 
in a little sketch. The rapid shifting of light, 



16 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

as clouds drifted across the sky, or the 
steamer changed her course, made it almost 
impossible to secure a truthful picture ; what 
was true one moment was false the next. 
Yet those little sketches, with all their im- 
perfections, bring back the memory of much 
pure and intense joy, and I would not ex- 
change them for hundreds of "Kodak"' views 
with their machine-like accuracy. 

Once, in despair over the inadequacy of 
my sketches, I gave vent to my feelings 
thus: 

"The sea is grey and mournful, 
It is blue as a sapphire fair; 
It is regal in Tyrian purple, 
Or black with sullen despair. 

'Tis outspread in the misty sunset, 

A sheet of mother-of-pearl ; 
It dimples and laughs in the dayshine 

Like a merry, roguish girl. 

It is green, like a perfect beryl 

Built into the heavenly wall ; 
It glows like a floor of topaz ; 

It is heavy and dark as a pall. 



IN ENGLAND. 17 

And over it bend the heavens, 

An ever-changing arch, 
Through which the cloud-battalions 

Sweep, and scurry, and march. 

Plateaux of rosy splendor 
'Neath peaks of a pearl-built world, 

Fling out their crimson banners 
And feathery pennons unfurled. 

The walls of a city of vision 

Are shining and glowing there; 
While below them a violet island 

Drifts by in the dream-laden air. 

No colors have I to match them, 

These dazzling hues of the sky; 
I will lay away paper and palette, 

And put all my brushes by; 

And perchance, in the night's still watches, 

In a sleep lit by magical gleams, 
The sea, for a breath, will be changeless, 

And I'll paint it once — in my dreams. 

Complaints are often made about the 
monotony of a sea voyage; but, if the trav- 
eler settles down to live during the time of 



18 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

the passage, instead of regarding it as a pe- 
riod of suspended animation, the journey is 
full of variety and interest. 

We are always eager to see our stewardess 
and learn what manner of woman she is, be- 
cause upon her so much of Princess' comfort 
depends. It must be said that we have always 
been fortunate in this respect. We have had 
stewardesses of various nationalities, Eng- 
lish, Irish, Scotch, Belgian and Italian, and 
we are scarcely prepared to say which we 
have liked best. 

Once we had an Irish stewardess who 
must have kissed the Blarney stone several 
times, for her flattery was both abundant and 
tactful, and combined with inexhaustible pa- 
tience and ingenuity. Of course, we knew 
that many of the sweet nothings lavished 
upon us were given with an eye single to our 
pocketbooks, but, as Marcella hath it, we all 
like to be "bobbed to," and each of us has a 
little bit of snobbishness lurking in some 
unsuspected corner. Moreover, the Irish 
woman was an artist and did much of her 
blarneying for the sheer delight of exercis- 



IN ENGLAND. 19 

ing her talents. Genuine art is always inter- 
esting. 

There was a Scotswoman on one of the 
ships of the Anchor Line, who told us to 
keep our stomachs "warrum and dhry." She 
also gave us much interesting information, 
afterward proved correct, about the Scottish 
school system, and the municipal government 
of Glasgow. She administered the informa- 
tion in small doses, in the intervals of fetch- 
ing and carrying to make us comfortable. It 
was a stormy passage that we made under 
her care; we had retreated to our room only 
after being blown out of our chairs by a 
sudden and powerful gust — "a bim wind," 
our guardian angel pronounced it — and, 
as it was several days before we ventured 
forth again, our "neat-handed Phyllis" did 
not lack occupation. 

I lost my heart entirely to a rosy English 
woman who carried me through a siege of 
sea-sickness on one of the steamers plying 
between Philadelphia and Liverpool. She 
was a beauty, with silky brown hair, dark 
gray eyes, a complexion like wild rose petals, 



20 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

and a voice that would have been a fortune 
to Lucrezia Borgia. Verily, if that woman 
had offered me a "cup of cold pizen," assur- 
ing me in her velvety chest tones that it 
would do me "so much good," I should have 
swallowed the dose without protest, serenely 
confident that it would work miracles in the 
way of relieving dizziness in my head, and 
putting a stop to the compound rotary mo- 
tion in what had at some prehistoric period 
been my stomach. 

We once had a Belgian stewardess who 
was as entertaining as a two-ring circus and 
as hard to keep in sight. She could not read 
the bill of fare, and invariably forgot my 
carefully-made French translations, when I 
ordered meals for the Princess. The results, 
which were both ludicrous and irritating, oc- 
casioned many interviews with that mighty, 
but good-natured, potentate, the chief stew- 
ard, and many unpleasant delays in serving 
the repasts of Her Royal Highness. At last, 
I took to making, with a pencil, the names of 
the required articles of food, after which the 



IN ENGLAND. 21 

commissary department, so far as we were 
concerned, ran smoothly. 

The one Italian stewardess into whose 
hands we have thus far fallen, was charming. 
She was pretty to begin with — all steward- 
esses should be pretty, it's so good for tired 
eyes to have something agreeable to look at. 
She had a voice almost as sweet as my Eng- 
lishwoman's, and the exquisite courtesy that 
seems the birthright of her race, from the 
royal family to the peasants of the Campagna 
and the gondoliers of Venice. This may be 
insincere, as certain cynics declare, but it is 
beautiful and wonderfully agreeable. If 
people are to cheat me, I prefer that they do 
it with a due observance of polite forms. 
Moreover, when I sum up my experiences 
in various lands, I can not remember that 1 
have been deceived and robbed by courteous 
Italians and polished Frenchmen any more 
than by gruff Germans and blunt English- 
men ; and the Latins have ruffled my temper 
far less than the Teutons. 

In fact, as you will see, the Princess and I 
set forth upon our little jaunts with quite an 



22 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

obstinate determination to be pleased and 
have a good time ; and we avoid grumblers 
and fault-finders as we should a mad dog or 
the cholera. 

It was on our last voyage to England that 
we came upon our most interesting romance 
— ours by right of discovery. 

We were crossing on a slow steamer, and 
it was toward the end of the second day. 
Princess, a trifle unsteady in her gait, had 
decided to take the air on deck for a little 
while. I was wondering how she was to be 
maintained in an upright position while I 
arranged blankets and cushions in her chair, 
when a cheery masculine voice with a famil- 
iar ring, said, 

"Let me help you." 

I looked at the speaker and recognized 
Ned Andrews, a cousin several times remov- 
ed, a great friend of ours from childhood. At 
the same moment he became aware of our 
identity and continued : 

"O, it's really you. I got hold of a pas- 
senger list only half an hour ago, and have 
been hunting for you ever since. Let me put 



IN ENGLAND. 2$ 

Princess in her chair, and then we can ex- 
plain how we all happen to be here." 

So Ned supported Princess while I placed 
the pillows; then he put her into her chair 
and tucked the rugs about her, performed the 
like kind offices for me, after which he 
perched on the rail near by, one arm wound 
about a stout rod, and surveyed us with 
amiable satisfaction. 

"I heard you were going to England this 
summer," he began soon, pushing his dark 
blue cap back from his face. "But I under- 
stood you were going on a Cunarder, and so 
wasn't looking for you. Where have you 
kept yourselves? I should think I'd have 
run over you before this time, there aren't 
many more than a hundred cabin passengers 
on board." 

"We did think of going on a Cunarder," 
Princess replied, "but decided that the long 
voyage would give us a nice rest. I think 
the Van Ruyters feasted us too abundantly 
while we were in Philadelphia, for even Pere- 
grina hasn't felt like herself since we started." 

Just then Helen Curtis, whose chair with 



24 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

her aunt's had been placed next ours, came 
to sit down with us. Of course, we intro- 
duced our cousin, and noticed with pleasure 
his admiring glance at our friend. Helen is 
such a pretty girl that it would be unpardon- 
able in anyone not to admire her, so we noted 
with satisfaction that Ned's taste was cor- 
rect. Helen is a slender girl, with dark hair 
that even damp weather never renders 
stringy, deep blue eyes with long dark lashes, 
and a complexion in which the color comes 
and goes so quickly that one never knows 
whether to say she is rosy or pale. She 
stayed with us only a short time, finding it 
necessary to pay frequent visits to her aunt, 
who is always thoroughly miserable on ship- 
board, and does her best to keep everyone 
around her from enjoying the voyage. 

"Miss Curtis," observed Ned, reflectively, 
after Helen had gone below; "I don't re- 
member ever hearing you speak of Miss 
Curtis." 

"No," responded Princess, "you never did. 
She is a friend of the Van Ruyters. When 
they found that we were all coming on the 



IN ENGLAND. 25 

same steamer, they invited the four of us to 
spend a few days with them before sailing. 
We like Helen very much, but Miss Brad- 
ford is a perfect dragon. You'll need to 
mind your p's and q's when she's about. She 
thinks any man who is not a graduate of the 
Boston Latin School and Harvard University 
is an ignoramus 'absolutely without culture.' 
You don't happen to have had any ancestors 
on board the Mayflower, do you ? Brush up 
your genealogical chart, and prepare to be 
catechised. For, as soon as Aunt Minerva 
hears you've been introduced to Helen, she'll 
be looking into your antecedents. 'It is im- 
possible to be too careful about a young girl's 
acquaintances.' " 

Ned laughed at Princess' imitation of Miss 
Bradford's manner, then he said, slowly — 

"She's right to guard her niece carefully. 
I'm afraid I haven't any Mayflower ances- 
tors, have I ? You ought to know." 

"Our English ancestors came over in 
1630," replied Princess, "and the others were 
patroons in the Mohawk Valley. You'll find 
it necessary to stand on your merits, my boy; 



26 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

you're without aristocratic ancestry, and were 
educated at a 'fresh water college.' It will 
test your mettle to get into Aunt Minerva's 
good graces." 

Ned smiled at the Princess with an air of 
perfect understanding. Soon he began ask- 
ing questions about our numerous relatives. 
We, looking at his strong, well-knit figure, 
his clear, honest gray eyes, and square, de- 
termined chin, had not much doubt that Aunt 
Minerva's prejudices would give way in time. 
We remembered, too, that Ned usually has 
what he really wishes to have, if pluck, en- 
ergy and tact can gain it. 

It will be understood from the foregoing 
remarks that Princess and I already had 
plans for our two friends. Indeed, after 
spending a week with the aunt and niece at 
the Van Ruyters, we had said to each other — 

"How perfectly that girl would suit Ned." 

To the young man himself, however, we 
said nothing of the kind, but played upon 
certain qualities of his, well known to both 
of us, by telling him of the lion in the way, 
in the person of the uncompromising aunt. 



IN ENGLAND. 27 

It will come out all right," said Princess 
to me in our state room that night, "if we 
don't spoil matters by getting too eager to 
help. It's easy to see that he admires her 
very much already. If Aunt Minerva is only 
obliged to stay below a good deal they'll be 
pretty well acquainted by the time we land. 
Then a little opposition and snubbing from 
Miss Bradford will rouse Ned, and I'll risk 
him. Middle-aged women always think him 
perfection." 

"I've never seen many women — or men 
either — of any age that didn't like Ned, or at 
least respect him thoroughly," I answered as 
I turned out the light. 



CHAPTER II. 

CHESTER. 

Old Chester, quiet city by the Dee, 

What ancient memories cluster 'round thy name. 

While all things change, thy calm is still the same, 
The hurry of our time disturbs not thee. 
Kingdoms may rise and fall and empires wane; 

New lands be found beyond the swelling sea; 
But here there comes no thought of loss or gain, 

If but thy streets and lanes in quiet be. 
Caesar may pass once more with all his train, 
Wild rumors rise of fierce, invading Dane; 

Charles see his bands dispersed to meet no more ; 
Secure thou sittest in thy old-world calm, 

Though surging life-tides beat about thy door, 
Unmoved by laurel wreath or martyr's palm. 

Princess and I had decided to spend the 
whole summer in England, doing our trav- 
eling in a very comfortable leisurely fashion, 
and Miss Bradford and Helen had decided to 
be of our company. Ned had come over on 
some business, but expected to do a little 
sight-seeing between times, so we had given 



IN ENGLAND. 2g 

him a copy of our itinerary, inviting him to 
join us whenever it was convenient and 
agreeable. 

Our cousin had been introduced to Miss 
Bradford only on the last day of the voyage, 
when the expected catechising had taken 
place. Nevertheless the young man had 
made such good use of his opportunities dur- 
ing that half day, that, as we were crossing 
from Liverpool to Chester by ferry Miss 
Minerva remarked to me that "Mr. Andrews 
seemed an excellent young man ; such a pity 
he had not had the advantages of a university 
training." 

We came near lingering at Chester for the 
entire season. The quiet of the town, its 
flavor of antiquity, its absolute freedom from 
worry and bustle, all suited our mood. In 
our native land, we read the morning paper 
regularly, and feel aggrieved if the boy who 
delivers it delays his coming, so that we 
are unable to learn and discuss, over eight 
o'clock toast and coffee, the latest news from 
the remotest quarters of the globe. If our 
neighbor's puppy, as sometimes happens, 



3 o PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

pursues his investigations in advance of ours, 
and gnaws out the middle of the most inter- 
esting articles, great is our wrath, and im- 
minent the danger of destruction overhang- 
ing that sprawling young animal. But, after 
a week or two on shipboard without news- 
papers, we learn to be quite comfortable, 
knowing nothing either of the results of the 
last election or the special attractions on Y"s 
bargain counter. Therefore when we had 
passed our inspection under the eyes of the 
polite customs officials at Liverpool, and 
transferred ourselves and our impedimenta to 
our quaint inn at Chester, we felj very nat- 
urally into the ways of the place, and felt 
that we should be content to abide there for 
an indefinite period. 

On the evening after our arrival we decid- 
ed to walk around the city walls. They are 
said to follow the line of Caesar's fortifica- 
tions, but have been renewed from time to 
time, so that it is difficult to determine the 
exact period at which a given part was built, 
unless the observer is an expert in judging 
the age of masonry. To an imaginative, 



IN ENGLAND. 31 

inexact feminine mind, this is rather an ad- 
vantage than otherwise ; the whole structure 
has a delightful suggestion of by-gone times ; 
and for an especially pleasing spot, one has a 
range of two thousand years to choose from ; 
while, in order to preserve one's illusions, it 
is only necessary to refrain from reading 
those paragraphs in the guide books which 
deal with dates, and from listening to the 
remarks of those superfluous individuals who 
persist in deluging their hearers with un- 
sought information. The best method to pur- 
sue with a person of this class is to think 
about something else while he is talking, and 
occasionally say "yes," "indeed?" "strange, 
isn't it?" to prevent his considering too cu- 
riously what your state of mind may be. A 
certain amount of accuracy is necessary for 
the conduct of life ; but one should not be 
too eager to thrust it upon others. The 
truth of this conclusion is always especially 
apparent to me, when I've gone somewhere 
with Miss Bradford. 

It was near sunset when we began our 
reconnaissance of the walls, and before us 



32 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

lay the long mid-summer twilight of the 
British Isles. There was a slight suggestion 
of mist in the air ; but armed with umbrellas, 
we had no fears. (Princess and I had one 
between us ; for, while the natives in most 
European countries travel with several ap- 
parently superfluous protections from sun 
and rain, besides canes, staffs and alpenstocks 
tied up in sheaves, we limit ourselves strictly 
to one umbrella. If, by chance, we start out 
on a long journey with two, it becomes a 
point of honor for one of us to lose hers at 
the earliest opportunity, while it is a misde- 
meanor for the other to call attention to the 
loss. This duty performed, we move on light- 
hearted and joyous over our lessened re- 
sponsibility.) 

We walked tranquilly along the old wall, 
stopping often to enjoy the views of the Dee, 
and wonder if any Mary were even then 
"calling the cattle home." We were not 
simply drinking in the calm beauty of the 
landscape, we were steeping our very souls 
in it, and feeling all fret and strain gradually 
relax and disappear under the quiet influ- 



IN ENGLAND. 33 

ences of the soft evening air, and the green 
meadows bound together by the silver rib- 
bon of the stream. The mist changed to a 
drizzle and the drizzle to a downpour, but 
what cared we? We were serenely happy, 
quite above being disturbed by any such 
trifle as the necessity of sending jackets, 
skirts and shoes to the kitchen for drying 
and freshening. 

Even Miss Bradford trudged along cheer- 
fully under the umbrella that Ned held over 
her with a most devoted air, while Helen fol- 
lowed them, Princess and I bringing up the 
rear. The aunt forgot even her fears of 
rheumatism — usually painfully alive — under 
the genial influence of Ned's attentions, the 
jokes that swept back and forth, and the 
laughter rippling about her. 

Having reveled in an evening on the walls, 
we went next morning for our first peep at 
the cathedral. We always enjoy loafing 
about a beautiful building, going back time 
after time for a new view of a favorite spot, 
gradually becoming acquainted, and making 
friends with the place. It is the only way to 
3 



34 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

derive real satisfaction from a great piece of 
architecture. 

Aside from its richly-carved choir stalls, 
Chester Cathedral has little special interest 
beyond its connection with Charles Kingsley. 
Even the presence of the arms of the Prince 
of Wales (Earl of Chester) and two old flags 
which touch the American heart because 
they figured at the battle of Bunker Hill, can 
hardly draw our thoughts away from the 
good muscular Christian who was once 
Canon here, and who would deserve to be 
remembered by the English-speaking world, 
even if he had left undone some of his other 
good deeds, and merely written "Westward 
Ho" and "Water Babies." 

The coat of arms brings back to mind the 
other Lord of Chester, the Constable Hugo, 
whom Scott's white magic has recalled from 
the past to live again in the pages of "The 
Betrothed." It is old-fashioned to admire 
Scott now; moreover, it hath been said by 
no less a person than Mark Twain that gentle 
Sir Walter's tales of chivalry are responsible 
for the blood feuds and the dueling of our 



IN ENGLAND. 35 

border States. Yet I am inclined to wonder, 
humbly, and with due deference to superior 
wisdom, whether the minds of the readers 
were not partly responsible. Boys in New 
England and the Middle States read the 
novels and the poems without any such dire- 
ful results. Possibly there is truth in the 
remark of one such lad : "Of course, a man 
ought to be careful what he writes; but, 
after all, you know, an author isn't responsi- 
ble if his readers are fools." 

Perhaps, "after all," Mark was only joking, 
and is not responsible if some of his learned 
reviewers lack a sense of humor. 

We had a little discussion on this subject 
as we stood examining the coats of arms, 
Aunt Minerva inclining to the great humor- 
ist's view, because she knows some men in 
Cambridge who support it; but Ned said, 
turning to Princess and myself, "The Wav- 
erly novels never hurt us any, did they? Re- 
member how we used to play 'Ivanhoe' in the 
old barn?" 

"Yes, indeed," said Princess; "Sir Walter 
has given us many innocently happy hours, 



36 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

though I believe Peregrina has never been 
reconciled because you boys insisted that she 
should be Adela Fitz Urse or some other 'fair 
ladye' instead of putting on the tin armor 
and figuring as a knight." 

To the average American traveler the 
most attractive parts of England and Scot- 
land are those spots where the men and 
women of Scott, Shakespeare, Dickens, 
Thackeray and George Eliot have played 
their parts in the dramas arranged for them 
by their creators. Historians and antiqua- 
rians may go on pointing out discrepancies 
and anachronisms to the end of time ; but 
the men and women we know and love — or 
hate — are the Margaret of Anjou, the Con- 
stance, the King John, the Leicester, the 
Richards and the Henrys of the two great 
masters of wizardry, Shakespeare and Scott. 
It is strange that any one can praise Shakes- 
peare and decry Scott, when it is so plain that 
Sir Walter is an earnest and loving disciple 
of King William. What we are pleased to 
call history is frequently one man's judg- 
ment, more or less biased, upon the facts that 



IN ENGLAND. 37 

he has been able to collect. Your only real 
history is found in the letters, the documents, 
the plays, the ballads — even the fiction — of 
the time considered; and these speak a dif- 
ferent language and tell a different story to 
every reader. Facts and dates we may col- 
lect, but the amount of real history that we 
learn depends upon our human quality, our 
power to find beneath varying customs and 
costumes the essential humanity of all climes 
and ages; upon our realization of the fact 
that our knowledge of others is only what 

"We dimly guess, deciphering [ourselves]." 

Most Cathedral services seem bare and 
inadequate, an impertinent trifling with the 
solemnity of the building, a feeble effort to 
call the thoughts of the congregation into a 
fixed channel from the flights through space 
and eternity to which they are incited by the 
soaring pillars and springing arches. To sit 
in a great cathedral and let one's soul lie 
open to its influences, aided by the roll of the 
organ, and perhaps the chanting of unseen 
choristers — if it be very good and not too 



38 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

near — is quite enough. Anything else breaks 
the spell by a touch of the commonplace. 

It is sometimes said that when a person has 
seen one cathedral he has seen them all, there 
is no need of visiting others. It might as 
well be said that when he has seen one human 
being he doesn't need to know any others. 
Every cathedral has a marked individuality 
and a special message of its own. Then, too, 
people have a foolish habit of asking you 
which cathedral you like best; just as they 
ask you, with equal foolishness, who is your 
favorite author — as if it could be the same 
one all the time. 

I know a lady — a good Christian, irre- 
proachable in her daily walk and conversa- 
tion, a model wife and mother, and a benedic- 
tion to the community in which she lives — 
who avers that every married woman should 
have two husbands ; one, for the wear and 
tear of every-day life, a sheet anchor in pe- 
riods of stress and storm, and another, for 
dress rehearsals and social functions, who 
could, between times, be wrapped up in pink 



IN ENGLAND. 39 

cotton and camphor gum and put away in 
the china closet. 

So with cathedrals, no one can give his 
allegiance to one for all time. The last one 
is almost always the loveliest ; yet, when one 
is away from them all, it is delightful to re- 
view them in memory and find in each some- 
thing to fit a special mood. 

This makes it easy to understand how a 
man can fall in love successively with several 
very different women. In truth, I myself 
have fallen in love with a great many men, 
as different as Hector, Prince of Troy, Rod- 
erick Dhu, and John Milton. However, as 
most of them have been dead several cen- 
turies they have not occasioned me much loss 
of sleep or many flutterings of heart. 

After wandering about the queer streets 
of Chester, looking in at the windows of 
shops in the Rows, spending a disproportion- 
ate amount of money on prints and photo- 
graphs, lunching on thin bread and butter, 
ham and strawberries and cream at a dim 
old restaurant, it is well to stray into the 
half-ruined church of St. John, there to re- 



40 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

turn thanks for one's many mercies. It is a 
pity that so beautiful a building should be in 
such a state, yet there are compensations; 
one's imagination may run riot and "restore," 
without fear of criticism, with the absolute 
certainty that one person, at least, will be 
pleased with the results. 

_ Like all Americans, we had wondered just 
how much meaning there really was in the 
legend so common all over the United King- 
dom, "Soapmakers to H. R. H., the Princess 
of Wales," "Hatters to H. R. H., the Prince 
of Wales," etc., etc. Accordingly one day 
when we were buying chocolate in a shop in 
Chester which bore the inscription, "Con- 
fectioners to Her Majesty, the Queen," Ned 
blandly asked: 

"As official confectioners, what do you 
supply to the Queen?" 

The trim shop-girl replied : 

"O, when there is a royal wedding, we 
always make a cake, sir." 

A few weeks later we came upon an old 
copy of an illustrated London paper, which 
gave an account of the wedding of some of 



IN ENGLAND. 41 

Queen Victoria's grandchildren; and, among 
other interesting objects therein portrayed, 
was a cake that suggested the tower of Pisa, 
except that its position was vertical. Below 
it was printed: 

"Wedding cake provided by Her Majesty, 

ordered from B , her confectioner in 

Chester." 

So we had settled one weighty question. 
Ned regrets that, on account of difficulties of 
transportation, it will not be possible for 

him to order a wedding cake from B of 

Chester. Princess suggests that he might 
come to Chester to be married. Ned rather 
likes that idea, and thinks he may do it, if 
the other person concerned, "when found," 
is willing. 

Of course, while at Chester, we made a 
little trip to Hawarden. We could not see 
the interior of Gladstone's home, because 
Mrs. Gladstone was then occupying the 
house; but we wandered about the noble 
park, and caught a glimpse of a white-haired 
lady in mourning and a girl walking together 
in the formal garden. We told each other 



42 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

that they must be Mrs. Gladstone and Dor- 
othy Drew, and did not destroy our content- 
ment by asking unnecessary questions of the 
gardener or the man who was mowing in the 
park. 

Hawarden is, like all English villages that 
I know, a beautiful place, made still more at- 
tractive by the public spirit and kindly con- 
sideration of the Prime Minister whose home 
was there during so many happy years. 
What place among statesmen history will 
finally assign to William Ewart Gladstone, 
only time can tell; but in Hawarden, his 
memory will always be fragrant as that of a 
devoted husband and father, a kind and 
thoughtful neighbor, an upright Christian 
gentleman. 

In recording our happiness at Chester, I 
must not fail to make mention of our inn. It 
was, of course, a quiet one, whose prices were 
moderate. It was exquisitely neat; hops 
climbed up over poles in the courtyard, and 
palms and ferns stood about in unexpected 
corners. 

Our room had beds with green canopies, 



IN ENGLAND. 43 

and we felt sure that some of Queen Eliza- 
beth's maids of honor must have occupied 
them. Helen and Miss Bradford had crim- 
son canopies over their beds, and Helen ex- 
pressed her conviction that King Charles and 
his favorite gentlemen-in-waiting slept, or lay- 
awake, in them the night before the battle of 
Rowton Moor. Whereupon, Ned not to be 
outdone, remarked: 

"I don't know anything about the age of 
the furniture in your rooms ; but mine is imi- 
tation antique, made in Stamford, Connecti- 
cut. I hunted up the maker's label." 

The dining-parlor was a cozy little room, 
with green-tinted walls adorned with pretty 
etchings and water colors. 

The maids were rosy and round with soft 
English voices. The "Boots" we never saw 
until our departure, when he lined up with 
the other servants to receive his "tip;" but 
he spirited away our shoes at mysterious 
hours of the night; and in the morning 
dropped them before our doors with a "heavy 
thump" that reminded us of the falling ship- 
mates of the "Ancient Mariner." This was, 



44 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

doubtless, a gentle hint that even royalty and 
pilgrims must not sleep all day, when there 
are still in Chester half-timbered houses un- 
visited and Cheshire cheese untasted. 

Princess refused the cheese point-blank, at 
first sight, so did Helen; Miss Bradford 
and I thought we would venture upon a bit. 
Some of it had reached a green old age, and 
other some was hoary with unmeasured an- 
tiquity. Truth compels me to state that 
neither Miss Bradford, with all her respect 
for ancient lineage, nor myself, usually fond 
of any kind of cheese, were able to' dispose 
of the portion set before us. Ned ate his and 
mine too, and pronounced it good. It was 
easy to see that his ability to do the proper 
thing on this occasion gave him added im- 
portance in Aunt Minerva's estimation. 



CHAPTER III. 

IN THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

On our departure from Chester Ned said 
good-bye for a time, as he had business in 
London. However, he decided to join us 
later for a few days' stay at Warwick. 

Accordingly we four women started by our- 
selves to visit the lake country. We took the 
"Prelude" and other Wordsworthian poems 
as a guide book, and straying northward 
from Chester went first to Furness Abbey. 

Available information about this ruin is 
exceedingly meager. It belonged to a 
brotherhood of Cistercian monks, at first call- 
ed the grey, afterward the white brothers, 
and was built as early as the twelfth century. 
Only the walls of the Abbey church and the 
Chapter House are preserved with any ap- 
proach to completeness ; yet, from the scat- 
tered stones and crumbling walls, one can al- 
most erect again the mass of buildings ay 
they were in the days of their prosperity, 



46 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

when the Abbot of Furness in the Valley of 
Deadly Nightshade was a mighty man in the 
land; when in the scriptorium learned men 
copied priceless manuscripts ; when the clois- 
tered brothers gathered daily in the great re- 
fectory and heard readings from lives of the 
saints while eating their noon-tide meal; 
when fasts and vigils were observed in chapel 
and cells; when causes of note were tried in 
the Chapter House ; when processions gay 
with banners swept down the stately nave 
and pillared aisles ; when lay brothers busied 
themselves with tending flocks and herds, 
and caring for forest, meadow, , and glebe- 
land in this almost royal domain; and the 
white monks and their abbot commanded 
respect and inspired awe in all the country- 
side. 

It is strange that the old abbey is not as 
rich in story and legend as in ivy and roses; 
that not even Scott found out a drama of 
mediaeval life played under the shadow of 
the once stately monastery. But so it is; 
this monument of a manner of life and 
thought now dead among the Anglo-Norman 



IN ENGLAND. 47 

race, lies here on the green hillside, deserted, 
silent, just a little sad, but beautiful beyond 
all words. 

After our half-day among the ruins, we 
were most prosaically hungry; accordingly, 
we betook ourselves to the Abbey Hotel; 
and, in its sumptuous parlor, sat down for 
afternoon tea. We felt like ladies of high 
degree come from some neighboring castle, 
so daintily splendid were our surroundings. 
When the bill appeared, we were sure the 
proprietor had mistaken us for some such 
persons of quality. However, this was an 
unusual extravagance; and, despite our mis- 
givings, we agreed that we had received our 
money's worth. 

There was, to begin with, the parlor itself; 
the tea, bread-and-butter, and jam were all 
of the best ; and the maid, in black gown and 
snowy cap and apron, was a picture, with her 
fluffy golden hair, her sapphire eyes, and 
cheeks as pink as her ribbons. She looked 
like the confidential serving-woman of a 
duchess, and tripped about the parlor as if 
it were indeed Her Grace's drawing-room. 



48 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

As we were leaving, I asked her some ques- 
tion about the neighboring ruin, to which 
she replied, with an injured expression in her 
blue orbs, "Really, mem, I don't know." 

When we were safely outside, Princess 
remonstrated. 

"You should know better than to ask such 
questions of a pink-and-white butterfly. 
When a girl is as satisfying to the eye as that 
one, she fulfills her mission. Nothing further 
should be expected of her." 

"She is satisfying to the ear, also," I re- 
torted. "I wasn't seeking information, I 
only wanted to hear her speak, 'whether she 
said anything worth hearing or not." 

The moment we put foot upon the Cygnet 
at Lakeside for the trip to Bowness, we suc- 
cumbed to the attractions of the Lake 
Country. Three of us did, that is; Aunt 
Minerva was wretched until we landed. I 
believe she missed Ned, who from the time 
he was presented to her on board the steamer 
until he put us into our compartment in a 
"carriage" of the north-bound train, had 
compassed the good lady with observances, 



IN ENGLAND. 49 

This rather interfered with his attentions to 
Helen, but I gathered from the demure smile 
with which she watched the proceedings that 
the little rogue understood our cousin's tac- 
tics as well as if he had explained them in so 
many words. 

It was evening when we sailed up Winder- 
mere to Bowness; the lake was calm, the 
moon most obligingly present. It must be 
said that during this particular summer the 
moon behaved as she does in a German 
novel, always shining when her light was 
needed for spectacular effect. Things are 
not always thus arranged in real life, and the 
moon is proverbially untrustworthy; but, 
during this season, she was disposed to be 
gracious and always appeared when desired. 

At Ambleside, we seriously considered the 
question of selling our return tickets, buying 
a lot, and building thereon a cottage, in which 
to end our days in retirement, communing 
with the mighty and unconventional souls 
that have made the region a goal of pilgrim- 
age. The temptation was great, and the re- 
flection that necessity required our return to 



50 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

the work-a-day world, to replenish our 
pocket-books, alone deterred us from carry- 
ing out the plan. 

In these days, alas, pilgrims may not de- 
pend upon the charity of the public, said pub- 
lic having too many other claims upon its 
resources, and pilgrims of modern times 
being beset with more numerous, complex, 
and expensive wants than those of the Middle 
Ages. Moreover, he, or she, who now-a-days 
striveth to go a-pilgriming in the good old 
fashion is liable to arrest and other unpleas- 
ant experiences; to be called unseemly 
names, as vagrant, tramp, or hobo; and to 
hear many times and oft Iago's advice to 
Roderigo, 

"Put money in thy purse." 

Despite these discouraging facts, no pil- 
grims of any time ever visited the shrines of 
saint and martyr with more diligence and de- 
votion than we gave to Harriet Martineau's 
house with its garden and sun-dial; to Gras- 
mere and Castle Rigg churches ; to Dove and 
Nob cottages and all the other haunts of 
Wordsworth, De Ouincy and the Coleridges. 



IN ENGLAND. Si 

Such delightful walks and drives as we had 
over the hilly roads, now shaded by trees in 
full leaf; now bordered by fields in which 
grew, rank on rank, the crimson fox-glove, 
"like regiments of soldiers," our old char- 
ioteer said ; and now perfumed by the breath 
of wild roses or spicy bog-myrtle. Shall any 
of us ever forget, I wonder, our first glimpse 
of Rydal Water, that tiny lake with wooded 
island, which somehow looked incongruously 
tropical, and awoke memories of Robinson 
Crusoe and Paul and Virginia. 

A photographer at Ambleside told us that 
since the present-day Wordsworths have 
grown well-to-do, and begun to shine a little 
in the glory reflected from their famous kins- 
man, they object to having him associated 
with Dove Cottage, trying, on the other 
hand, to emphasize his residence at Rydal 
Mount, while they refuse to allow the public 
to visit this later home of the poet. But 
Stopford Brooke and the Wordsworth so- 
ciety have defeated the aims of the snobbish 
relatives and are making Dove Cottage a 



52 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

fitting memorial of the poet, his wife, and 
his sister. 

Wordsworth was a man fortunate in his 
womankind. Suppose they had longed for 
cities, for society, bric-a-brac, operas, even 
for ease and luxury in their country home, 
where then would have been his "sweet 
calm" and tranquil content? 

I left Dove Cottage fully resolved that 
when the day came for me to bid farewell to 
active life, I would retire with the few hun- 
dreds I hope to have saved by that time, to 
the Adirondack forest, or some lovely nook 
in the woods of Wisconsin, build for myself 
a tiny house on a hillside, so that I, too, 
might step directly into the garden from my 
second-floor window; that I would line the 
walls with book-cases to the height of six 
feet; hang all my choicest pictures, framed 
and unframed, in the spaces above ; and here 
in communion with the choice spirits of the 
ages, I would spend my last days. 

"The world forgetting, by the world forgot," 

if perchance the world should know enough 



IN ENGLAND. 53 

about me to make forgetting a necessary 
process. 

I confided this beautiful project to my 
companions one evening as we sat on the 
shore of Lake Windermere; but I met with 
scant encouragement. 

"What will you do about mice, in a house 
alone by yourself?" queried Helen, who had 
been up with me two or three nights, hunting 
imaginary rodents. 

"Then, you know," added the Princess, 
"there are sometimes bears in the Adiron- 
dacks, and tramps in all lonely places, besides 
you'd have nervous prostration by the time 
you'd encountered three or four cows in your 
morning rambles." 

So I shall probably not carry out my plan ; 
but go on working after I ought to stop, in 
order to earn money to spend upon things 
that I do not want, but which civilized hu- 
man beings are popularly supposed to need. 

It is much easier for a man to live in this 
fashion than for a woman to do so. Even 
in the home of an intellectual hermit, with 
artistic tastes, fires must be built; outside, 



54 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

paths must be swept; repairs, taxes, and 
other things of that nature must be looked 
after. All things considered, I fear I am 
not perfectly adapted to the life of a recluse. 
Other kindly spirits besides those of the 
Wordsworths haunt this lovely region. De 
Ouincey came a-visiting and remained nine- 
teen years. How strange it is that he should 
have been a Briton — this creature of Oriental 
brilliancy of imagination, and shy, erratic 
manners. But his was a time when unusual 
minds and characters abounded. Coleridge, 
a towering personality despite his many 
weaknesses, was as Orientally magnificent 
in his imagination, and, to put it mildly, as 
unconventional as De Quincey. Keats, 
Byron, and Shelley, though not associated 
with them, had even more impatience of ac- 
cepted standards than Wordsworth and Cole- 
ridge. It was, throughout Europe, an un- 
easy age. Southey escaped the prevailing 
influence; but his writings are as tame as 
his opinions. Doubtless, he was a more com- 
fortable man to live with than his more gifted 



IN ENGLAND. 55 

neighbors; and the world is richer for his 
honest, cheerful, laborious life. 

One must wonder at times if the Words- 
worth women were not occasionally con- 
scious of a pain in their necks, induced by 
continuous looking up; or whether they re- 
laxed once in a way by exchanging glances of 
sympathetic understanding over the idiosyn- 
cracies of William, who was, after all, only a 
man, and totally devoid of humor. The world 
will never realize how much quiet satisfaction 
women derive from that sort of telegraphing 
to each other; for it is a thing no mortal 
man can ever appreciate. 

Over at Coniston, lived for a time that 
most idealistic of political economists and 
most uncompromising hater of shams, John 
Ruskin. This home of his meets one's sense 
of the fitness of things. It is remote enough 
and beautiful enough to satisfy the artistic, 
grumbling, yet essentially kindly critic of the 
human race and its works, aesthetic and 
otherwise. So here he sleeps and his grave 
is one more shrine, visited of those who love 
whatsoever is pure, true, and of good report. 



56 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

At Foxe Howe, between Rydal Water and 
Ambleside, is the home of by no means the 
least of the Lakeside celebrities, Dr. Thomas 
Arnold. The house and its surroundings are 
as beautiful as everything else hereabouts, 
and its owner was an entirely worthy inhab- 
itant. Beyond this praise cannot go. A 
man who could assume the leadership of a 
company of boys, win them against even 
their prejudices and traditions, not merely to 
an acquiescence in his plans for their wel- 
fare, but to a hearty support thereof; a man 
who sent up to the universities, year after 
year, boys who were recognized as his pupils 
because of their uprightness and their scorn 
of trickery; such a man has lived one of the 
grandest of poems. 

I would rather have been Thomas Arnold 
than William Wordsworth. Possibly there 
were days, when things went badly at Rugby, 
when boys were unreasonable, lessons badly 
prepared, and masters irritable, when Dr. 
Arnold. The house and its surroundings are 
great personality, and his view usually the 
cheerful one. 



IN ENGLAND. 57 

It is good for the visitor to the Lake 
region to spend considerable time in the 
churches of Grasmere and Castle Rigg. Both 
are so quiet, so simple, and unpretending that 
they are most fitting places of worship for 
the folk of the countryside. They seem, in a 
way, the products of the soil. Yet, with all 
its simplicity, how rich is the churchyard in 
its possession of the dust of Wordsworth, 
Hartley Coleridge, and Arthur Hugh 
Clough, and how like to the manly poet him- 
self is sturdy Grasmere church ; while, for 
days after we had visited Castle Rigg, I 
caught myself from time to time repeating 
Canon Rawnsley's lines on the little build- 
ing which is such a quiet ante-chapel to the 
purple-green mountin towering above : 

"And he who would Helvellyn's height assay 
May join their company who found 
Earth's beauty, made Life's inn a house of prayer, 
And sped, refreshed of soul, upon their way." 

Keswick is the most disappointing spot in 
all this part of England. Nothing could be 
more attractive than its surroundings, but 



5 8 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

the town itself is given over to the Philis- 
tines. 

If one could find a whitewashed cottage in 
a nook of hills or on the shores of Derwent- 
water, where he might withdraw from the 
world and enjoy the beauties of sky, moun- 
tain and lake, he might be both good and 
happy. But, teased by the continual obtru- 
sion of the commonplace, he fails, in Kes- 
wick, to be either the one or the other. 

Failing to discover the desired cottage, we 
tarried only long enough for a pilgrimage to 
Greta Hall and Crossthwaite Church, and a 
tour of the lake. I had always desired to see 
"how the water comes down at Lodore." 
What there is of it comes down quite rapidly, 
as the law of gravitation is not suspended in 
this part of the country; but I shall always 
have a grievance against Southey. He is 
less accurate in his descriptions than Words- 
worth, possibly because he is more versifier 
and less poet. Still, the "Falls of Lodore" 
and the "Journey to Moscow" have at times 
given me much joy; so the grievance may 
after a while be mitigated. 



IN ENGLAND. 59 

After our tour of the lake, we sighed 
more than ever for the cottage; and Prin- 
cess, with truly regal lawlessness, even sug- 
gested confiscating one or two whose ex- 
teriors were more than commonly attractive. 
From this high-handed proceeding, we were 
deterred by fear of a collision with the British 
Constitution. This alone might not have 
sufficed, unsupported by the suspicion that 
Uncle Samuel's government might not in- 
cline to intervene and save us from the re- 
sults of following our royal impulses. 

The old sexton at Crossthwaite Church is 
nearly as amusing as the venerable Mrs. 
Baker who used to pilot visitors through 
Anne Hathaway's cottage. He entertained 
us hospitably for a summer afternoon. We 
should have liked to bring him home with 
us. This is a desire not often produced by 
the conversation of custodians of churches; 
but this old man was a choice specimen, and 
we made much of him accordingly. May he 
live to a still riper old age, and delight many 
other traveler's by the sight of his pictur- 



60 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

esquely wrinkled face and the sound and 
sense of his quaint observations. 

A few days' sojourn at Keswick brings the 
reader to a full understanding and sympathy 
with Wordsworth's aversion to railroads. 
Natheless, but for these much reviled means 
of travel, pilgrims without overmuch scrip in 
their purses, might be forced to content 
themselves with knowing the lakes of Eng- 
land through books alone. This would be 
a hardship, indeed, for, among the places 
that are quite as satisfactory as what the 
poets have written about them, the Lake 
Country holds a high rank. Is that because 
we know it chiefly through the poets? The 
question recalls Sir Philip Sydney's state- 
ment that "of all writers under the sun, the 
poet is least liar." 

Possibly it is not the railroads themselves 
that are to blame for the conditions com- 
plained of at Keswick, but the desire of the 
average man to turn everything to what he 
is pleased to call "practical" uses. Popular 
superstition and numerous foreign writers to 
the contrary notwithstanding, this is not an 



IN ENGLAND. 61 

exclusively American trait. Can it be pos- 
sible that in us it is merely a manifestation 
of characteristics derived from our numerous 
lines of ancestry? 



CHAPTER IV. 

UCHFIEI*D AND DR. JOHNSON. 

From Keswick, Miss Bradford and Helen 
decided to go to Scotland, making a little 
journey to the Burns country, the Scottish 
lakes, Edinburgh, Melrose and Abbotsford. 
When they began to talk of this plan, Prin- 
cess and I wavered a little, for these are 
places dear to our hearts ; and when we visit- 
ed them, we were blessed with such perfect 
weather that we thought all the brownies 
must be favorable to our undertaking. This 
pleasant belief lasted until we reached Ab- 
botsford, when the drenching rains in which 
we made our pilgrimage to the home of Scott, 
and to Dryburgh and Melrose made us won- 
der in what way we could have offended our 
guardian spirits. 

However, as we had come with the inten- 
tion of devoting the summer to England, we 
steeled our hearts against temptation, and, 
turning a deaf ear to the voice of the charmer, 



IN ENGLAND. 63 

prepared to carry out our original plan of 
going, by way of Lichfield, to Warwick, 
where our three friends were to rejoin us. 

It is a pleasant experience to arrive at 
Lichfield on the afternoon of a summer's 
day; to eat supper in the dining-room of the 
Swan Inn, all gay and sweet with roses, then 
to be shown to a chamber opening off one of 
the winding corridors; to sit by the open 
window and write letters and dream till the 
long twilight darkens into night; and, at 
last, to climb into the high, canopied bed, 
where one goes to sleep to the accompani- 
ment of the sweet-toned cathedral chimes. 

Whoever first bestowed upon the cathe- 
dral of Lichfield the title of "Queen of the 
English Cathedrals" was a person of taste; 
and he who gave to her spires the name of 
"Ladies of the Vale" was a poet. Smaller 
than almost any other cathedral on the island, 
less imposing in its position than most of the 
others, yet, in the perfect harmony of its pro- 
portions, the delicate grace of its outlines, 
the richness of its carvings, the lofty sweeps 
of its clustered pillars, and the spring of its 



64 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

vaulted roof, it has a beauty and charm un- 
surpassed even by York, Lincoln, or Canter- 
bury. 

Princess being ill on one day of our stay 
here, and preferring solitude to society, I 
started out for an exploring expedition quite 
alone. The ten o'clock service had begun 
when I reached the Cathedral ; it was, there- 
fore, too late for any overzealous church- 
warden or beadle to compel me to sit within 
the choir enclosure. Accordingly, I took a 
chair near the door and soon forgot every- 
thing in the beauty of the place. As before 
mentioned, I find a cathedral 'service delight- 
ful when I am not obliged to pay close at- 
tention. On this morning, the roll of the 
organ, the occasional sound of the chimes, 
and the voices of unseen singers combined 
to produce an effect harmonious, solemn, and 
reverend. 

After the close of the service, I moved over 
toward a fine window in the north aisle. 
Presently there came sweeping by a rosy- 
faced, white-haired clergyman in full canon- 
icals. Seeing me by the window, he stopped, 




o 

V, 

o 

w 
p 

3 1 



IN ENGLAND. 65 

saying in a rich, cheerful voice, 

"Ah ! that's a good bit of glass. We have 
some good glass here. Our best, of course, 
is in the Lady Chapel. One gentleman, who 
knows a good bit about glass, says it is the 
finest in the world. Of course," smiling, 
"that is saying a great deal ; but it is certain- 
ly among the finest. Now there," pointing 
to a window farthest east, "is some abomi- 
nable stuff. I really think the choristers 
should be allowed to take a shy at it." 

I looked at the window and quite agreed 
with the reverend gentleman in his judgment. 
But I only said : 

"No doubt they would appreciate the priv- 
ilege." 

His words recalled the fact that the chor- 
isters, whose voices, soaring among the 
arches of the roof, had suggested thoughts 
of cherubim and seraphim before the Great 
White Throne, were undoubtedly very hu- 
man, with the same taste for "shying" char- 
acteristic of boys who never wear vestments. 
The clergyman smiled back at me, very 
much, I thought, as though he would not ob- 

5 



66 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

ject to being counted in with the choristers 
when the attack on the obnoxious window 
should begin. Then he told me about a visit 
Ruskin had paid them, shortly after the Dean 
and Chapter and other persons interested, 
had put, near the entrance to the Chapter 
House, a memorial window to an old verger 
who had recently died after an unbroken 
term of service of forty years and more. 
Ruskin, wandering about the Cathedral, came 
upon this window ; and, stopping before it, 
said heartily, 

"Ah ! there's a good bit of old glass." 
After telling this story, over which he and 
his colleagues had evidently been rejoicing 
ever since the great man's visit, the friendly 
clergyman wished me a pleasant stay in 
Lichfield; and, bowing in courteous wise, 
swept on. 

This little incident made me feel quite at 
home in the building ; very much, I imagine, 
as one would feel after receiving the freedom 
of a city in a gold box. Still I could not help 
wondering a little how this benevolent eccle- 
siastic happened to speak to me. Yet, re- 



IN ENGLAND. 67^ 

membering how railroad officials and police- 
men everywhere seem burdened with respon- 
sibility about me, though I rarely ask them 
questions; and how people in general are 
possessed with an eager desire to bestow ad- 
vice upon me, I decided that his behavior was 
not so strange, after all. Besides, the canon, 
prebendary, or whatever he was, seemed fond 
of his cathedral, and was perhaps unwilling 
that even one stray American should over- 
look a pane of its exquisite glass. Indeed, 
every one in the diocese may justly be proud 
of the windows, some of the newer ones, even, 
having a beauty of outline, a softness and 
richness of tone and coloring that rival the 
best of the old specimens. 

Johnson is everywhere in the atmosphere 
of Lichfield. On the wall of the south aisle 
of the Cathedral is a medallion to his mem- 
ory, side by side with another to his pupil and 
comrade, Garrick. 

For a little time, however, the memory of 
the eighteenth century's Dictator of Letters 
is eclipsed by the interest that every one 
must feel in Chantry's statue of "The Sleep- 



68 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

ing Children." Carved in creamy marble, to 
which the softened light from the windows 
gives a rosy tinge, lie the figures of two girls 
asleep in each other's arms. One is possibly 
fifteen years of age; the other, about seven 
years younger. They are in the bloom of 
health, and full of the elastic grace of youth. 
So easy and natural are the positions that it 
is difficult to realize that a touch or a word 
will not awaken the sleepers. 

Out in the market place stands the colossal 
statue of Dr. Johnson. It does not, despite 
its size, seem pretentious. It is fitting that 
everything connected with this man should 
be on a grand scale. He dominates his na- 
tive town to this day as he dominated his 
own time, poor, homely, awkward, yet a 
king by right divine, and by the true royalty 
of mind and character. 

Here are the house where Johnson was 
born, the walks he took, the haunts he loved, 
the final resting-place of his parents. Even 
Uttoxeter, the thriving market-town of the 
vicinity in his boyhood, is now remembered 
because of the penance to which Johnson, the 



IN ENGLAND. 69 

scholar subjected himself because of the sin 
of omission of Samuel, the disobedient son. 

Johnson is admirable for his force of in- 
tellect and character, but he is lovable for the 
tenderness of heart that such self-discipline 
reveals. It speaks well, too, for the father 
that such a son should have so revered his 
memory and so atoned for a lack of filial obe- 
dience. 

The old church on the hill, under the shade 
of the solemn yews, where Johnson's parents 
lie buried, is an attractive spot for quiet medi- 
tation. The path that leads to it, along quiet 
country roads bordered by hedge-rows, is an 
allurement in itself; and the lanes and paths 
across the fields that bring one back, by way 
of St. Chad's church and well, to the rear 
of the Cathedral close, would be irresistible 
to a person who is not afraid of cows. 

The presence of cows, in force, in the fields 
through which so many charming pathways 
lead to most desirable places, is the chief 
drawback to pedestrian explorations in Eng- 
land. When I have been beguiled, persuad- 
ed, or driven into crossing one of those fields 



70 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

on foot, the beauty of the landscape is spoil- 
ed by my agonies of fear, and I cry out with 
the Psalmist, 

"Strong bulls of Bashan have compassed 
me around." 

Princess always declares that the cattle in 
the fields are mere harmless bossies, else they 
would not be there; a statement which cer- 
tainly looks reasonable. But that makes no 
difference to me; on this subject, as on one 
or two others, I am not amenable to reason. 

The cows were the sole blots on the land- 
scape in Litchfield, but they were numerous. 
Nevertheless, I should be willing to endure 
the torture again for the sake of the joy. 
Having said this, I refrain from the use of 
superlatives. 

There are other things besides the John- 
son relics and memorials that combine to give 
Lichfield an antique flavor. Indeed, many of 
the houses and streets are far older than 
Johnson's time, and might, could they speak, 
tell tales of the hiding of St. Chad's bones ; 
the conference of Stanley and Richmond on 
the eve of Bosworth field; and the siege of 



IN ENGLAND. 71 

the town by the man whom Scott, following 
a local historian, calls "The fanatic Brook." 

Here is the George Inn, the scene of Far- 
quhar's comedy, "The Beaux Stratagem," for 
which the rooms of the old inn would even 
now afford a fairly adequate setting. 

Unless one looks toward the railway sta- 
tion at the far end of the town, he may quite 
easily believe himself a contemporary of 
Johnson, Garrick, Sheridan, Burke, and the 
rest of the company who absorbed so much 
tea — and other liquids — at various inns and 
ale houses, besides what was provided them 
in Mrs. Thrale's parlors and ordered by them 
in their own lodgings. Yet, for the most 
part, they laid about them right lustily and 
smote many 

"Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras dire," 

the moral and social evils that beset 
their time. They were not over-dainty; not 
always refined, according to our standards; 
their dress left much to be desired in neat- 
ness, and their manners in gentleness; but 
they were sturdy men, of the sound-hearted 



72 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

middle class, and they left the world better 
than they found it. Who of us can lay claim 
to higher praises? 

When one calls up the group in some one 
or other of their favorite haunts, and sees a 
canny Scott among these burly Englishmen 
and witty Irishmen, one asks himself, how 
this man happens to have strayed into this 
particular company. But, in time, one realizes 
that the Scot believes he has a mission, he 
was born to chronicle the sayings and doings 
of a greater than himself; and he proves his 
faith by his works, the result being that we 
read with eagerness Boswell's story of John- 
son's life, and neglect the ponderous works 
which the Doctor himself produced so con- 
scientiously, and which colored the writings 
of nearly every other man of his time who 
wrote in English on either side of the At- 
lantic. We find the true Johnsonian flavor, 
not only in the writings and speeches of 
Burke and his colleagues in Parliament and 
Ministry, but in the debates of the Continent- 
al Congress and the State papers of George 
Washington. King George might be flouted 



IN ENGLAND. 73 

by his disaffected colonies ; but King Samuel, 
despite his Toryism, was consciously or un- 
consciously admired and imitated in Massa- 
chusetts and Virginia. 



CHAPTER V. 
in Shakespeare's country. 

We resolved not to hasten through the 
Warwickshire district, but to take plenty of 
time to see all the interesting spots in the 
country of Shakespeare and George Eliot. 

Accordingly, we settled ourselves at "The 
Dale," a quiet inn at Warwick, and, with this 
as a base of supplies, made raids into the sur- 
rounding region. We loitered about the 
quaint old town; ate luncheons and teas in 
queer little restaurants; visited the Castle, 
the churches, and Leicester's hospital ; traced 
out the line of the old wall ; made excursions 
on foot, by tram or by rail, to Leamington, 
Stratford, Coventry, Kenilworth, and Rugby ; 
and were quite sure all the time that no one 
had ever enjoyed Warwickshire as we were 
enjoying it. It is much to know one's bless- 
ings ere they take their flight. 

Warwick is a bit of the sixteenth century 
surviving through three hundred years of 



IN ENGLAND. 75 

change. When, on coming from the station, 
one has passed the East Gate, with its tiny 
chapel atop, it is necessary to revise one's 
systems of measurement, and standards of 
estimate. The long street that winds, bor- 
dered by fragrant lime-trees, from the East 
Gate of Warwick to smart, pretentious, yet 
beautiful, Leamington, is trying very hard to 
shake off its Elizabethan trappings and be- 
come truly modern. One kindly man, a coun- 
cillor and merchant of the town, said, with a 
smile dimpling his rosy old face, 

"H'an h'artist told me once that h'every 
corner in Warwick was a picture ; an' 'e rated 
me soundly for tearin' down my three 'un- 
dred years h'old shop h'and buildin' a new 
one with plate-glass windows. But h'lm no 
h'artist; these picturesque h'old 'aouses is 
dark an' stuffy; h'and h'l don't see h'as well 
h'as h'l did once; so, in my h'old h'age, I 
want more h'air h'and light." 

Thus it will doubtless come to pass in time, 
that most of the old houses will disappear; 
and Warwick will become modern, hygienic, 
and — no, it can never be ugly. Meanwhile, 



76 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

we are glad to have anticipated the arrival of 
progress. 

The old home of Walter Savage Landor, 
just outside the city wall, is now used for the 
Girls' High School. With difficulty, we gain- 
ed admission to this seat of learning. We 
were given chairs in the office of the Head 
Mistress, and requested to wait until the close 
of a recitation that she was conducting, when 
she would "be very pleased" to show us the 
school. So we waited patiently, like Mary's 
little lamb, until the lady, young, capable, 
alert, appeared. She greeted us doubtfully, 
and then offered to conduct us through the 
building. 

We followed her from room to room, and 
saw girls of all sizes, from the class prepar- 
ing for University examinations to the so- 
called Kintergarten. When the door into 
a given room was opened and we were ush- 
ered in, all activity was suspended ; the Head 
Mistress inquired what work was in progress, 
and was answered "Botany," "Algebra," or 
"Numbers," as the case might be ; we gazed 
for a moment and then moved solemnly on. 



IN ENGLAND. 77 

We were shown the school hall ; the cloak- 
rooms, occupying the interior of the quaint 
Elizabethan house between the Landor house 
and the city gate ; the gardens, and the tennis 
grounds; but not one syllable of recitation 
did we hear. 

The teachers, like the Head Mistress, ap- 
peared alert and intelligent ; the girls were 
the usual type of well-fed, slow-moving Eng- 
lish maidens, with heavy masses of hair fall- 
ing over their shoulders. The children point- 
ed out as making up the Kindergarten class 
were much older than those found in Ameri- 
can Kindergartens; and seated at ordinary 
desks, were busy with books and slates as 
though they had been in school for three or 
four years. 

All the girls looked contented and healthy, 
but we had no means of determining their 
intellectual status, and we went away wonder- 
ing why those large infants were supposed 
to make up a Kindergarten, and why a school 
of so many grades should be called a High 
School. 

Later on, in London, we visited a so-called 



78 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

college which numbered among its pupils 
boys and girls of all ages, from tiny tots just 
beginning to read, to tall lads choosing be- 
tween Cambridge and Oxford. It was sim- 
ply a very good private school; and we de- 
cided that the word college must be as elastic 
in England as it is said to be in our own 
country. 

We decided to make a visit to Coventry be- 
fore the others came; because, as Princess 
remarked, "If it's half as interesting as I'm 
prepared to find it, we shall wish to go more 
than once, and can run over with the others 
when they come." 

Princess was not disappointed in Coven- 
try, whcih is one of the most interesting 
towns in the kingdom. London is the im- 
perial city; Bristol, the Queen City; and 
Coventry, the Prince's Chamber. Since Ed- 
ward, the Black Prince, every Prince of 
Wales has been feasted in the Guild Hall, and 
otherwise entertained by the Mayor and Cor- 
poration, a fact on which the inhabitants of 
Coventry plume themselves not a little. 

We spent a long delightful day at Coven- 



IN ENGLAND. 79 

try; and, later, repeated the visit; but the 
first day was so full of pleasant experiences 
that it deserves to be considered by itself. 
It was a little incongruous to ride atop of an 
electric tram up the long, crooked street, and 
see the effigy of Peeping Tom looking down 
upon this modern means of conveyance in the 
same indifferent manner that he has looked 
upon everything else in this street for several 
centuries past; and will, we trust, for cen- 
turies to come. 

Our first shrine was the church of St. 
Michael, which has one of the "three spires 
of Coventry." This proved to be a most for- 
tunate choice; for here we met with the re- 
ward of disinterested merit. Virtue may be 
its own reward, but there are others that 
blend with it harmoniously. Our good for- 
tune came in this wise. We had gone to St. 
Michael's partly because we were attracted 
by the beauty of its spire, partly because of 
its connection with the old Mystery Plays. 
We were trying to revive for ourselves some 
old spectacle of bygone days, punctuating 
our more connected remarks with ejacula- 



80 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

tions on the beauty of the warm, brilliant, yet 
softened light, that poured through the win- 
dows, when our raptures were overheard by 
one of the church wardens to whom they 
seemed very satisfactory. Accordingly, he 
begged permission to show us some better 
points of view, whence we might enjoy still 
more the mellow glory of the golden light. 

This done, the good gentleman must show 
us the Guild Hall, a necessity to which we 
readily submitted. We found the Hall most 
attractive. There was an immense banquet 
room, ovens that looked as if they might be 
used for roasting elephants, historical por- 
traits, tapestry, and a painting and a statue of 
the obedient, but determined, Lady Godiva. 
Was it not that tyrannical old husband of 
hers who was the only person besides the king 
to see the angel who came to give to Edward 
the Confessor the divine directions as to the 
building of Westminster Abbey. Just why 
such a grumpy individual should have been so 
favored, it is hard to understand. Possibly 
he was possessed of virtues not mentioned by 
the chroniclers. 



IN ENGLAND. 81 

As we came out of the Guild Hall our at- 
tention was called to an old house hard by, 
whose age-blackened timbers showed, here 
and there among the carven grape-vines, the 
familiar Tudor rose. 

"That," said our unknown benefactor, "was, 
in the fifteenth century, the favorite rallying- 
place of the Lancastrians of these parts ; for, 
you must know, Coventry has always been 
strongly Lancastrian; it was here that Henry 
VII held court for a short time after the 
battle of Bosworth Field had made him King 
of England." 

We lent attentive ears to this discourse ; 
because all disciples of Shakespeare are per- 
force Lancastrians, especially while they are 
in Will's own country. 

Margaret of Anjou was received here after 
her defeat at Tewksbury ; and one hears more 
kindly mention of the fiery queen in Coven- 
try than elsewhere in England. Did Coven- 
try love Margaret because of what the city 
did for the queen, or because she, harassed, 
insulted, and defied elsewhere, here given re- 
fuge and comfort, relaxed somewhat of her 



82 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

haughty pride, and showed herself what, de- 
spite her faults, she undoubtedly was when 
she chose to be, a charming woman, loyal to 
the rights of her family; driven to play the 
man's part by the inefficiency of her father, 
the indecision of her husband, the youth of 
her son? 

Much of Margaret's fierceness was doubt- 
less due to her being placed in a false posi- 
tion. She, a princess, the heroine of trouba- 
dours and minstrels, the star of the court of 
Provence, had married a king and was en- 
titled to the privileges and immunities of 
royalty; but she was driven by' stress of cir- 
cumstances to adopt the role of a leader of 
armies and a ruler of men, a role for which, 
half-consciously only, she felt herself unfit- 
ted; hence her irritability, her outbursts of 
rage, her harshness and arrogance. 

This old house before which we paused to 
listen and admire, deserves the commenda- 
tion that some appreciative person has be- 
stowed upon Ford's hospital for old women 
in a narrow street hard by: 

"It is perfect of its kind, and ought to be 
kept under a glass case," 



IN ENGLAND. 83 

In that charmed half-day, our guide went 
with us from one delightful nook of old Cov- 
entry to another fascinating spot. He showed 
us the route of the long-maintained annual 
procession in honor of Lady Godiva, starting 
from the Guild Hall and winding through the 
most ancient of the crooked streets. He re- 
marked casually of one street that it was 
"quite modern, only about six hundred years 
old, in fact." 

He also told us that the effigy of Peeping 
Tom, is in reality an ancient wooden statue of 
St. George, unearthed once upon a time dur- 
ing some "restorations," and changed as to 
name, because Peeping Tom was locally more 
interesting (and profitable) than the hero of 
the dragon-legend. The change is of no par- 
ticular consequence, the average visitor is 
not, as a rule, too familiar with the features of 
either the saint or the sinner in question ; and 
the wooden image serves very well to mark 
the spot where the Tom of tradition is said 
to have met the punishment due his imperti- 
nent curiosity. 

Singular, is it not, that a man should be 



84 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

held up to obloquy for nigh a thousand years 
for giving way to his curiosity, a weakness 
popularly supposed to belong exclusively to 
women? Undoubtedly this is a triumph of 
true psychology over age-old misrepresenta- 
tion. 

As we walked down the street leading to 
St. Mary's church, built by Isabella, "the she- 
wolf of France," to expiate the murder of Ed- 
ward II, our guide pointed out to us the 
Bull's Head Inn, where Mary Stuart was 
twice imprisoned. Every place gains an add- 
ed interest from even a slight connection 
with the unfortunate princess who possessed 
such power for good and evil and such un- 
failing charm. 

It is reported that when Mary was sent 
hither, her royal cousin sent with her the 
message : 

"Keep her straitly; and let no man have 
speech with her, lest she undo him." 

The words are characteristic, and show 
Elizabeth's perfect understanding of the sit- 
uation. 

Nearly opposite the Bull's Head stands the 



IN ENGLAND. 85 

oldest Independent church now remaining 
in England. 

Others were built before this one, but it 
has defied the passage of time and the changes 
in creed and sentiment for nearly three cen- 
turies. It is a plain, rather ugly building, 
with none of the quaintness that characterizes 
most of its neighbors ; yet it has a certain dig- 
nity and interest because of the mighty cur- 
rent of thought and action whose humble be- 
ginnings it commemorates. 

Down a narrow street, branching off near 
the church, stands the more than modest 
house in which Ellen Terry first opened her 
eyes upon this world's stage. The company 
to which her parents belonged — for she 
comes to her art by right of inheritance — 
was playing in Coventry when she was born ; 
and so the town adds one more item to its list 
of claims upon the attention of the traveler. 

At last, at the far end of the rambling 
street, we came to St. Mary's Church, a build- 
ing which enjoys the distinction of having all 
its walls slightly out of plumb and of being, 
in consequence, entirely guiltless of right an- 



86 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

gles. In the chapel of St. John the Baptist, 
masses were said during three hundred years 
for the repose of the soul of Edward II, the 
said masses being paid for out of a fund pro- 
vided by his widow, who had been the chief 
agent in procuring his premature departure 
from this earthly life. 

Isabella behaved handsomely, according to 
her light; she had removed a superfluous hus- 
band from her own path, thereby depriving 
him of an earthly crown and kingdom ; but 
she did her best, as she thought, to secure 
for him an abundant entrance into the 
kingdom of heaven. There were conveni- 
ences about the beliefs of those days, afford- 
ing pleasant, and apparently safe, by-paths 
to the accomplishment of one's desires, even 
when these were in direct opposition to the 
restraints imposed by the Decalogue, and the 
law of the land. 

The benevolent churchwarden who spent 
the forenoon in helping us to find the antiqui- 
ties of the town, and whom we had begun to 
suspect of being an incarnation of the tutelary 
deity of the city, was, we learned later in the 



IN ENGLAND. 87 

day, an archaeologist of note, and an F. R. S. 
Shortly before our visit, he had shown to that 
very fortunate man, the Prince of Wales, all 
the sights of Coventry. This information 
was a trifle overwhelming, at first; but then, 
I reflected, I was traveling with a Princess, 
entitled to all the royal honors ; besides, I 
don't believe H. R. H. enjoyed it a bit more, 
if as much, as we pilgrims from "a ferre coun- 
tree." 

The good gentleman rounded out his half- 
day's work by directing us to a most excellent 
inn for our luncheon; this last kind deed 
showed that his mind was not entirely absorb- 
ed by the middle ages. 

Having saturated ourselves with Old Cov- 
entry in the forenoon, we decided to devote 
the afternoon to seeking out all possible 
traces of George Eliot. Accordingly, we took 
a tram, in hope of finding Rose Hill Cottage, 
the home of the Brays. When the guard 
came to collect our fares, we told him where 
we wished to go, in order that he might tell 
us how much to pay. He shook his head in 



88 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

bewilderment, he knew no such place. Prin- 
cess and I glanced at each other, wondering 
what to do; whereupon, a gentleman across 
the aisle said: 

"Collect the same fare from the ladies as 
from me; Rose Hill Cottage is across the 
way from my house ; I'll show them how to 
find it." 

Good fortune still attended us, then. We 
settled back upon the bench, and looked with 
interest at the villas that we were passing. 

At length the tram stopped; the guard 
signed us to alight; we obeyed orders, and 
the gentleman who had come to our rescue 
stood awaiting us. He said, smilingly, "This 
way ladies, it is only a step." 

We followed him along the shaded road, 
until stopping at a gate opening into a little 
park, he said, indicating a house opposite : 

"There it is, the white cottage with the 
high fence, and trees all about." 

We expressed our hearty thanks, and 
crossed the street. We peered through the 
palings ; we stood on tiptoe and looked over 
the fences; and at last gathered courage to 



IN ENGLAND. 89 

ring the bell, and ask the pretty maid who re- 
sponded to the summons, whether two stran- 
gers from America would be permitted to see 
the grounds. 

She courteously invited us in while she 
made inquiries ; and, giving us seats, tripped 
away, to be presently replaced by the house- 
keeper, who expressed Mrs. Bray's regrets 
at not being able to see us in person, but add- 
ed that she herself was instructed to show us 
the house and grounds. 

The impression that we had received in the 
morning, and that was destined to receive 
further confirmation later on, was deepened 
now, namely: that one of the first duties of 
every inhabitant of Coventry is to obey the 
apostolic injunction concerning the entertain- 
ment of strangers. Whether angels have 
ever been found among the city's visitors, I 
cannot say. This I know, Princess and my- 
self were, on that summer afternoon, as an- 
gelic as we knew how to be. 

The most attractive part of Mrs. Bray's 
cottage was the morning room, a large piazza 
walled in with glass, in order that all the sun's 



9 o PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

rays might be retained for the mistress whose 
circulation was growing a little sluggish. 

In this room were gathered mementoes of 
the thinkers of her day whom Mrs. Bray had 
counted among her friends. These took 
the form of autograph manuscripts, por- 
traits, busts and gifts of books from their 
authors. Here the good lady might sit in the 
evening of life, and commune with the spirits 
of departed great ones at their best and high- 
est. 

We felt doubtful about making an effort to 
see more of the Evans house in the Foleshill 
Road than was visible from the highway ; but 
Mrs. Bray's housekeeper urged. 

"O, by all means, ladies, ask to see the 
garden. Permission to do that is always 
given cheerfully." 

Thus encouraged, we set forth, going a 
part of the way on the top of a tram, and 
walking the remainder of the distance along 
the beautiful road. At length we reached the 
house ; and, ringing at the side door, prof- 
fered our humble request to the smart maid 
who answered our summons. This person- 



IN ENGLAND. gt 

age left us standing outside "Wile she went 
to h'ahsk." 

To us presently came the mistress of the 
house, far less imposing and "uppish" than 
her domestic. She was, in fact, a most kindly 
and cordial lady, who would not listen to 
such a thing as our going away with merely 
a sight of the garden. She herself conducted 
us over the house, carefully noting the addi- 
tion made since the end of the Evans occu- 
pation. She showed us George Eliot's own 
room, and gave us sprigs from the holly tree 
under the window near which she used to sit 
at her writing. The lady even went with us 
over the lawn and gardens, to our expres- 
sions of gratitude returning the gracious an- 
swer : 

"O, please don't mention it; I visited 
America the year of the Columbian exposi- 
tion ; and every one was so kind to me, that 
1 made a vow to return the kindness to every 
American who should come in my way." 

At last, we dragged our reluctant feet out 
of the beautiful gardens, and betook our- 
selves by tram and cab to Griff House, near 



92 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

Nuneaton, the childhood home of the creator 
of Tom and Maggie. The people who occu- 
py this house evidently did not come over to 
the Columbian exposition, for they do not ad- 
mit visitors to their home. Consequently, 
we were obliged to content ourselves with 
wandering about the grounds, and trying to 
determine from an exterior view, the proba- 
ble location of the attic in which little Mary 
Ann Evans used to subject her own wooden 
doll to the treatment which she describes 
Maggie Tulliver as inflicting upon her inani- 
mate scapegoat. 

A strange, unhappy girlhood, this of Mar- 
ian Evans, must have been. Isolated by her 
very genius from real association with the 
persons who surrounded her, and doubtless 
by them accounted "queer," she lived alone 
with her thoughts and emotions, her mind a 
highly sensitized plate whereon the life she 
witnessed left indelible impressions. Her 
analysis of the thoughts and emotions of her 
rustic neighbors in her first and greatest 
novels, shows how closely and sympathetic- 



IN ENGLAND. 93 

ally she studied them, although they had 
but small understanding of her. 

But I am roused from the reflections by the 
voice of my mentor, the Princess, asking 
whether it is my intention to return to Cov- 
entry, and thence to Warwick this afternoon, 
or to spend the night in the garden of Griff 
House. She gives point and emphasis to her 
questions by reminding me that our cab is 
hired by the hour. 

Moved by the tone of her voice, as well as 
by her thrifty suggestion, I bid farewell to 
Griff House, and we set our faces once more 
toward Coventry. 

Arrived at the station, we learn that the 
train is late. I generously refrain from re- 
marking to Princess that we might have staid 
half an hour longer at Griff House. To this 
silence I am partly held by the reflection that 
my fellow traveler would reply : 

"Of, if we had staid, such is the perversity 
of trains that this one would have been on 
time." 

Presently, seeing my uneasiness, Princess 
observes ; 



94 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

"There are two hospitals here, two 
churches — the other 'spires' — and a bicycle 
factory. You might visit some of those while 
we wait." 

Whereto I respond : 

"We are coming again for the hospitals 
and churches. As for bicycle factories, they 
abound in Dayton, Ohio, and other parts of 
Uncle Samuel's country, where George Eliot, 
Peeping Tom and Lady Godiva never lived, 
nor Isabella of the uneasy conscience built 
churches to atone -for her crimes. Bicycle 
factories in Coventry have no attractions for 
me." 

After a time, Princess goes for a solitary 
stroll along the platform ; she returns soon, 
wearing a most grim and forbidding expres- 
sion upon her usually vivacious face. She 
volunteers no explanation. I ask for none, 
but resolve that I, too, will promenade and 
thereby, possibly, learn something interest- 
ing. 

As I move down the long platform, my 
eye is caught by the pretty white-capped 
maids at the refreshment stands. The after- 



IN ENGLAND. 95 

noon is warm, and the maids look refresh- 
ingly cool and neat. We have thus far in our 
wanderings absorbed various strange and un- 
appetizing liquids poured out for us in re- 
sponse to our request for lemonade. A sud- 
den inspiration seizes me at sight of the fine- 
looking lemons piled up on the tables. I 
cheerfully approach the door and say to the 
white-capped Hebe : 

"One lemon-squash, please." 

She perpetrates the usual "Thank you-ou- 
ou," with the inevitable drawl and the mad- 
dening upward slide, squeezes the juice of 
half an enormous lemon into a glass of water, 
with 

"Four-pence, please ; thank you-ou," and 
hies her away to supply the wants of another 
thirsty traveler. 

With pleasing anticipations of "h'American 
lemonade," I raise the glass to my mouth ; 
but this is, sometimes, a disappointing world ; 
there is no sugar in the stuff, and the girl is 
beyond reach, and evidently intends to re- 
main there ; she is coquetting with a man in 
tweeds, and evidently finds that more inter- 



96 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

csting than looking after my prosaic necessi- 
ties. I swallow enough of the acid to relieve 
my thirst; try to comfort myself with the 
thought that lemon juice and water is a good 
corrective for biliousness ; set the glass down 
rather hard; and then return to my com- 
rade, wearing an expression as unpleasant as 
her own had been shortly before. 

As soon as she catches sight of my face, 
that young woman, enlightened by experi- 
ence, cries out : 

"Ah, you have been trying a lemon- 
squash !" 

"Yes, for my sins," I reply with a groan; 
and then we both laugh, with the prolonged 
laughter that comes of utter exhaustion, and 
that in some way relieves the nervous tension 
and makes us feel better. 

When we reach our own room at the Dale, 
we add another chapter to our history of 
"lemonade as she is drunk" in the British 
Isles; and then go to bed to dream of fas- 
cinating old houses, churches and winding 
streets whose guardian angels are kindly folk 
governed by a desire to make the stranger 



IN ENGLAND. 97 

happy by helping him to find everything he 
most desires to see. 

The next day was the one set for the arri- 
val of Miss Bradford and Helen ; so we went 
to the station to meet them. In my sur- 
prise at finding Ned with them — Princess did 
not seem at all astonished — and the inter- 
change of questions and explanations, so 
much time was consumed, that when we tried 
to find a cab, the last one had disappeared. 

"You see mum," explained the lame old 
man who seemed the presiding-genius of the 
place. "So many h'Americans came h'in h'on 
this train that they've swallowed h'every cab 
h'about the place." 

So we were fain to content ourselves with 
engaging a boy to bring the baggage to the 
hotel in a hand-cart, while we ourselves went 
thither on foot. 

Helen and I walked on together, while Ned 
escorted Miss Bradford and Princess. 

"Now, tell me," I said, when we were fair- 
ly started, "where you found Ned. I haven't 
this matter cleared up yet." 

"We had been in Edinburgh two days," 

7 



98 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

replied Helen, "when Mr. Andrus surprised 
us by walking into the hotel dining-room, 
just after we had sat down to dinner. When 
he saw us, he asked if he might take a vacant 
seat near, and Auntie said, 'O, certainly.' We 
were very glad to see him, and he made the 
rest of the journey much easier for us inex- 
perienced travelers." 

Just then I heard Miss Bradford's voice 
behind me, saying: 

"So fortunate, was it not, that Mr. Andrus 
should have "happened to come to the Old 
Waverly, too? You have no idea what a 
help he has been." 

"O, when people are traveling about this 
little island, they are bound to run against 
each other more or less," commented Prin- 
cess ; and something revealed to me that she 
had played some part in bringing about this 
particular coincidence. "And I'm sure Ned 
ought to know how to make himself useful; 
Peregrina and I have done our best to disci- 
pline him." 

"That is true," responded Ned heartily. "I 
cannot complain, with any show of justice, 



IN ENGLAND. 99 

that my cousins have ever neglected me in 
any way." 

I could detect the same tone of suppressed 
mischief in his voice that I had before re- 
marked in the tones of the Princess. I 
glanced at Helen ; she did not return my look 
directly; but I could see a glimmer of fun 
under her long dark lashes, and a faint quiver 
in the dimples about her mouth. So I was 
sure that my suspicions had been correct, and 
that Princess had been assisting the fates a 
little by means of the royal mails. 

Our three friends enjoyed the Dale as 
much as we did, and found our hostess, a 
timid little creature whom Helen christened 
"the startled fawn," as attentive to their 
wishes and careful of their comforts as any 
one could be. Even Miss Bradford expressed 
her lofty satisfaction. 

We all went together to St. Mary's Church, 
whose chief attraction is beautiful Beau- 
champ chapel, where are buried Robert, Earl 
of Leicester, — Lettice, his wife, and the "no- 
ble imp" their son. The crypt of the church 
is also interesting, chiefly because it contains 

Lore. 



ioo PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

a ducking-stool, once used as a means of dis- 
cipline for the good dames of Warwick when 
they showed themselves too glib and shrill 
of tongue. I wondered what befell the men 
in like circumstances ; and Ned expressed his 
intention of having one or two instruments 
made after that model for the benefit of cer- 
tain politicians in his home ward. 

There is a set of chimes in St. Mary's tower, 
which plays a different tune for every day in 
the week. At midnight, the tune for the clos- 
ing day is played, followed immediately by 
that which is to gladden the ears of the inhab- 
itant of Warwick and the stranger within his 
gates during the next twenty-four hours. 
There is something wrong with the machin- 
ery, so that, in places, the time is quite pe- 
culiar, and occasionally one or two notes fail 
to sound. The effect of this singular be- 
havior on the part of the bells is simply mad- 
dening when one is trying to go to sleep after 
a hard day's work. Princess and I amused 
ourselves in the still watches of the night, try- 
ing to imagine why any one had ever wished 
for a set of chimes that rang every quarter- 



IN ENGLAND. lot 

hour seven days in the week, fifty-two weeks 
in the year, for century after century. 

One morning at the breakfast table Helen 
propounded the theory that the purpose of 
the contrivance must have been to prevent 
people from sleeping too soundly, at a period 
when the devout were expected to observe 
primes and matins. 

"It would take something more than 
chimes to keep the people of this town 
awake," objected Ned. "It's my opinion that 
the machine was devised as a penance for 
monks who were too fond of the profane art 
of music. It would certainly have been a suf- 
ficiently severe penalty for most sins." 

We did not care much for the service at St. 
Mary's on week days. The congregation was 
small and seemed indifferent, and the clergy- 
man had a voice that should have been a bar 
to his ordination. 

We did enjoy dropping in occasionally at 
the picturesque and quiet old church of St. 
Nicholas for the unpretentious reading of 
morning prayers; and, on Sunday, we found 
a dissenting chapel, where a simple and prac- 



102 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

tical sermon was preached, and the singing 
reminded us of the efforts of country choirs 
in our own beloved land. 

One of the most attractive places in War- 
wick is Leicester's Hospital. Nothing else 
can give the visitor the concentrated flavor 
of the town, like this home for disabled sol- 
diers. The building dates from the four- 
teenth century; and was, therefore, about 
two hundred years old when it was ceded to 
our ancient enemy, Robert Dudley, for the 
housing of a hospital that he was minded to 
found. 

Among all the old houses that'give kindly 
greeting from every corner and by street of 
Warwick, none are so beautiful as this group, 
standing in the friendly shadow of the west 
gate. There is a greater number of curious 
gables, and all the beams and projecting bits 
of wood are more elaborately carved here 
than elsewhere in the town. Here, too, are 
displayed the coats of arms of the numerous 
patrons of the institution. Conspicuous 
among them are the bear-and-ragged-staff of 
the Nevilles and the Dudleys, and Sidney's 



IN ENGLAND. 103 

rather formidable porcupine. It is hard to 
connect this grotesque and bristling animal 
with the chivalrous, intellectual, and efficient 
gentleman who sparkled as the chief jewel of 
Elizabeth's dominions. But most of us re- 
ceive something undesirable from our ances- 
tors ; and Sidney was fortunate, if all the dis- 
agreeable things connected with his forebears 
were found in this cognizance of the hedge- 
hog. 

The brother who showed us about was 
quite as interesting as the place itself, and a 
fitting guide to its beauties and mysteries. 
For a long period he served his queen in her 
armies, having been upwards of twenty years 
in India. For twenty-six years he had dwelt 
in the hospital, daily growing prouder of his 
position, its dignities, and privileges. He in- 
formed us with a manner that conveyed the 
impression that nothing short of a prostra- 
tion on our part would do justice to the an- 
nouncement that he had, shortly before, "'ad 
the h'onor h'of showin' 'is Royal 'ighness the 
Prince h'of Wales h'over the 'aouse an' 
graounds." 



io 4 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

Fortunate Prince of Wales ! How delight- 
ful it must be to create happiness for such 
numbers of people, merely by letting them 
'gaze when you pass by, or better still, open 
a door for you. When all is said, royalty has 
its uses. 

The old garden is divided into long strips, 
each assigned to a brother who cultivates it 
according to his own fancy. Each strip con- 
tains potatoes, vegetables, and various old- 
fashioned flowers, all growing harmoniously, 
side by side. 

Between the brothers' garden and the 
court, stands a vase, a milometer, an exqui- 
site piece of creamy white stone, with the 
usual lotus and the wavy lines representing 
the waters of the Nile. Beside this patriarch 
among vases, the great one from Hadrian's 
villa which is to be seen at the castle, appears 
very young and a trifle commonplace. The 
Roman vase is much larger and far more 
profusely ornamented, but the Egyptian, with 
its simple dignified lines, is full of the mys- 
tery and wonder inseparable from the race 
whose creation it is. The Roman vase saw 



IN ENGLAND. 105 

the decline of the Caesars, but this one was 
standing by the Nile when Rameses built his 
treasure-cities. 

The gateway between garden and court is 
spanned by a Norman arch found in the crypt 
of the neighboring chapel, when that build- 
ing was restored a few years ago. In its pres- 
ent position the arch is very effective, and ex- 
cites no feeling of dissatisfaction over its 
change of location. There is here that atmos- 
phere of quiet remoteness from every-day 
life that we are wont to associate with a Cath- 
edral close, so the ecclesiastical arch seems 
quite at home. 

In the kitchen stands the chair occupied by 
James I when he was entertained in the ban- 
queting hall above ; and close by is a Saxon 
chair dating from King Alfred's time. The 
guide-books say it is uncomfortable, but I did 
not find it so. 

Near the clock hang two bits of faded tap- 
estry wrought by the hands of no less a per- 
son than fair Amy Robsart. Our guide took 
delight in calling attention to the fact that 
Sir Walter has made a mistake in dates ; for 



106 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

Amy, at the time of Queen Elizabeth's visit 
to Kenilworth, had been dead twelve years. 
Well, suppose she had? It is none the less 
Sir Walter's Amy over whose tomb at Ox- 
ford we drop a tear, literal or figurative ; and 
not all the pious inscriptions in the hospital 
which his lordship of Leicester founded, will 
change our rooted opinion that the said Lei- 
cester was an unmitigated rascal. It satisfies 
one's sense of poetic justice to hear the dark 
whisper that Countess Lettice, whose marble 
hand Earl Robert is represented as holding 
most affectionately on their tomb in Beau- 
champ Chapel, did poison her lordly consort, 
because she preferred some other man to 
him. It was not a nice thing for the lady to 
do, but his fate was as good as the earl de- 
served. 

The banqueting hall with its beams of 
Spanish cedar, white and fresh as if cut yes- 
terday, was particularly interesting to our 
guide, because of the banquet in honor of 
King James, before referred to. He affected 
to read an inscription commemorating the oc- 
casion, but really repeated it by rote. This 



IN ENGLAND. 107 

he did with great sound, bringing his heels 
together in a way that suggested the pro- 
priety of a flourish of trumpets, either at the 
beginning or end of the performance. 

The tiny chapel over the West Gate has 
seats for the accommodation of the brethren 
and their wives. Here, at ten in the morning 
on week-days the service is read by the Mas- 
ter, who is always a clergyman of the Church 
of England. On Sundays, the brothers at- 
tend service at St. Mary's in the village, and 
mightily proud they are, in their dark-blue 
gowns and the silver badges bearing the Lei- 
cester arms. 

At the west end of the chapel, to the left 
of the door, is the Master's seat, and to the 
right that of the nobleman who is at the head 
of the board of trustees. The stalls of the 
brethren face each other, six on a side ; and, 
nearer the altar, are the corresponding seats 
for their wives. 

At each brother's place is a Bible and a 
prayer-book. Tradition hath it that, some- 
time in the sixties, money was contributed 
to buy books for the old ladies. Thereupon, 



108 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

the brethren promptly took possession of the 
new books, passing the old ones on to their 
better halves. Not a very chivalrous pro- 
ceeding, was it? But then, they carefully ex- 
plain, the brothers are the real beneficiaries of 
the foundation, and their wives, to use a Yan- 
kee phrase, "connected only by marriage." 

So true is this statement that, when a 
brother dies, his widow, however aged and 
helpless, must leave the shelter of the hos- 
pital, and seek a home elsewhere. The fees 
of visitors are now devoted to a fund intend- 
ed to provide for the poor women and pre- 
vent their being left homeless' as well as 
widowed. 

Our guide proudly showed us that the old 
west wall of the city formed a part of the 
boundary line of the hospital demesne ; and 
could, in consequence, never be removed. 
He was a prince of guides, for he loved the 
old building, and his guidance was not a mere 
form of conducting troublesome strangers 
over the house and grounds. He allowed 
nothing to pass unnoticed; he put us at the 
best points for observing, and insisted upon 



IN ENGLAND. 109 

our seeing every bit of carving and the small- 
est letter of each inscription. 

Just as we were leaving, we ventured to 
ask his name ; he showed us an envelope ad- 
dressed to Robert Owen, saying with a 
smile : 

"You see, 'owever much h'l pay, h'Fm 
lr always a h'Owen." 

With this remark as food for meditation, 
until elimination of superfluous h's should re- 
veal its occult meaning, we bade our cicerone 
good-bye, and turned away from the sturdy- 
looking figure at the gate, a figure whose 
ruddy face, crowned by snowy hair, bore an 
expression of pity for the foreigners who 
might never, as disabled British soldiers of 
certain favored counties, be sent to end their 
days at Leicester's hospital. 

Of course, all visitors to Warwick go to see 
the castle. If one might wander about the 
armory long enough to make acquaintance 
with the relics gathered therein, or pause in 
the picture-gallery for a sufficient length of 
time to identify the famous personages whose 
portraits are there displayed, the visit might 



no PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

be both pleasant and profitable ; for the stout 
old fortress is associated with some of the 
most stirring events of English history. 

Although visitors are driven through the 
castle by a red-uniformed soldier whose gen- 
eral appearance and behavior suggest those 
of a loquacious lobster, and although the rate 
of speed at which the traveler progresses is 
like that of a pea through a pop-gun, and we 
reach the exit too warm and ruffled to carry 
away very affectionate memories of Sir Guy's 
punch-bowl, or the rib of the "dun cow," 
which is "very like a whale's," it is always 
possible to enjoy the garden and the park at 
leisure. 

Here, the most attractive things are not 
the peacocks, preening and strutting in the 
sun, and very evidently enjoying the admira- 
tion they excite ; nor even the great Warwick 
vase; but the mighty cedars of Lebanon, 
which some long-ago lord of the manor 
brought from the Holy Land in old crusading 
days. Sad-looking trees they are, with a 
mournful voice when the wind breathes upon 
them, reminders of dead generations, and of 



IN ENGLAND. in 

faiths and enthusiasms that have not perish- 
ed, but taken on new forms. 

Princess refused to allow me to go to the 
castle with the others, declaring that I had 
come home from my last visit so cross as to 
be unfit for civilized society. Accordingly, 
while she went to our room to nurse a head- 
ache, I, having seen the others started, went 
out to sketch the old chapel over the East 
Gate. 

When Helen returned at noon, she came to 
stand in our door, with her hands behind 
her, looking at me with dancing eyes. 

"When children are made to stay at home 
from interesting places, it is always proper 
for those who are allowed to go, to bring 
home something nice for them, isn't it? 

Then she flourished a beautiful peacock's 
feather. 

"Where did you get that?" demanded 
Princess and I in one breath. 

"Well," the young lady replied deliberate- 
ly, "I saw that one of these gorgeous birds 
was about to lose this feather; and so, while 
Auntie was listening to the rigmarole that 



ii2 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

old parrot reels off about the 'vahze,' I fol- 
lowed the vain creature about till the feather 
dropped on the ground, and then I picked it 
up and brought it home for Miss Peregrina to 
put in that precious book where she keeps 
all her treasures and relics. Possibly it would 
have taken longer to secure the feather, if 
Mr. Andrus handn't helped me a little." 

Kenilworth is, on the whole, more satisfy- 
ing than Warwick Castle. Here no guide 
hurries the visitor from place to place mum- 
bling statements uninteresting to himself and 
unintelligible to his hearers. 

As a rule, guides should be stationed here 
and there in historic grounds and buildings, 
with instructions to remain silent unless ques- 
tioned, and should be feed in proportion to 
their obedience to these orders. 

At Kenilworth, the stranger may wander 
at will about the ruins, locating the spots 
where tourneys were held of yore ; may even 
imagine Queen Bess, in all the glory of one 
of her most marvelous costumes, sweeping 
over the bridge into the castle yard; may 
fancy, too, in spite of dates, that he sees Amy 



IN ENGLAND. 113 

Robsart's frightened face, looking out from 
the tower window down upon the pleasance, 
trying to catch a glimpse of the dazzling 
fickle hero who had captivated her girlish 
imagination. 

Stones and mortar may crumble, and ivy 
cover the walls, but for us there rise again 
the banquet-hall, the chapel, the towers, Ken- 
ilworth in its glory as perhaps it was seen on 
a summer's day in the sixth or seventh decade 
of the sixteenth century by Master John 
Shakespeare's lad, Will. 

The American who reads so much, and 
withal so meekly, about the commercial spirit 
that prevails in his own country, and the wor- 
ship of the "almighty dollar" so fervent and 
widespread there, has always a feeling of 
amusement in going about Stratford, and 
paying a shilling or sixpence at every turn ; 
to see Anne Hathaway's house, to enter 
Shakespeare's birthplace, to visit the museum 
and library, for entrance to the beautiful old 
church where lies the dust that once housed 
the soul of the greatest poet of the world. 
Within the church one is pursued by a deter- 



ii4 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

mined young man in clerical dress, who is 
quite resolved that no visitor, especially if an 
American, shall escape paying tribute. The 
harassed pilgrim wishes that he might pay 
the sum of all these shillings and sixpences 
immediately upon his entry into the town, 
and then be left in peace to pursue his inves- 
tigations and dream his time away. The 
average, fairly well-read American knows a 
great deal more about Shakespeare and his 
haunts than the average so-called guide can 
tell him; and is willing, if necessary to pay 
for the privilege of being left alone during his 
stay in Stratford, provided he can do his pay- 
ing all at one time, and be thereafter free to 
pursue his own devices. 

In the south transept of Trinity Church is 
the so-called American window. Near it is 

a box bearing the persuasive legend : "$ 

are necessary for the completion of this win- 
dow. If every American visitor would con- 
tribute a dollar it might be finished this year." 

So far as careful observation can deter- 
mine, there is aside from the aforementioned 
dollars nothing American about the window 



IN ENGLAND. 115 

except a compartment representing the land- 
ing of the Pilgrims. Just why King Charles 
the Martyr (!) and Archbishop Laud should 
figure in this window, it is difficult to say. 
Possibly because their behavior drove so 
many people out of England, and thereby 
contributed indirectly to the founding of the 
colonies that later on grew so obstreperous. 
The connection of these worthies with 
Shakespeare is equally hard to trace. Queen 
Bess, Sidney, Raleigh, Ben Jonson, the de- 
struction of the Armada, scenes from the 
plays, would all have a fitness in Stratford 
church; while if the window is to be Amer- 
ican, Hampden, Pym, and Eliot, or Sir Henry 
Vane, were better subjects, even stout old 
Noll, himself, though he was not beautiful; 
nor, if one may believe the statements of 
custodians and vergers, any warm admirer of 
stained glass. 

If Cromwell or his troops were guilty of 
half the destruction laid to their charge, they 
must have led a busy life. Recent investiga- 
tions, however, cause me to believe that His 
Majesty King Henry the Eighth, of pious 



n6 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

memory, did his share of smashing, and that 
from far less exalted motives than those 
which actuated Cromwell and his Ironsides. 

The promoters of this window would show 
far greater reverence for the "lamp of truth" 
by such portraits as those suggested than 
by the ones placed here. As the window now 
stands, it is calculated to arouse lively sym- 
pathy with Cromwell's feeling toward its 
kind. 

When all is said, we must acknowledge 
that Oliver and his comrades gave us some- 
thing better than that which they destroyed ; 
honesty, reverence for truth, Uprightness, 
purity of life, civil and religious freedom. 
Charles was a spoiled child, and Laud, his 
tool and victim. "The Martyr!" Martyr to 
his own obstinacy and his inability to tell the 
truth, "or even," Ned amends "to tell a con- 
sistent lie and stick to it." Cathedral glass 
may be replaced; "restoration funds," like 
the poor, are always with us ; but the legacy 
of Puritan England, the world, though often 
unconscious of its heritage, could ill afford 
to spare, 



IN ENGLAND. 117 

After the indignation meeting of which the 
above paragraphs afford a sort of secretary's 
report, we soothed our ruffled spirits by a 
quiet time in the chancel with its curious 
"skew." One can always spare a few minutes 
from the tomb, with its startling inscription 
and unconvincing bust, to enter into the spirit 
of the old builders, who drew every line and 
laid every stone in loving remembrance of the 
story of the Cross; and perhaps of all the 
symbolism found in Gothic churches, none is 
more touching than this bending of the chan- 
cel to recall the drooping of the weary head of 
the thorn-crowned Son of God. 

The bust of Shakespeare in the" church cer- 
tainly does violence to one's every conception 
of the way a poet should look. Only the 
dome-like head and the lofty brow are at all in 
harmony with the mind of the artist as shown 
in his work. Doubtless the bust is the pro- 
duction of a local artist who was more stone 
mason than sculptor, and it therefore shows 
only the most obvious traits, leaving unnoted 
all those finer lines which give to any face 
its individual distinction. This may be unfair 



n8 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

to the maker of the bust ; but it is impossible 
to believe that the creator of Cordelia, Rosa- 
lind, Juliet, Viola, the two Portias, and the 
rest of their gracious sisterhood, could have 
resembled that object. Besides, as Ned re- 
marked, "if that donkey who calls himself a 
guide, over at the Shakespeare house, 
wouldn't persist in trimming his hair and 
beard so as to make him look like that monu- 
ment, one could believe in it more easily." 

It may be thought that these views of our 
company are due to our having eaten some- 
thing that disagreed with us during our visit 
to Stratford. This would be a serious mis- 
take. We had walked across the flowery 
fields to Shottery ; and after exploring Anne 
Hathaway's cottage, returned to Stratford, 
tired and hungry, as doubtless did William 
himself many a time, after the same prome- 
nade. By our twelve-years-old guide — an 
ideal age for a guide on such a tramp — we 
were conducted to an inn where we feasted 
sumptuously on lamb with mint-sauce and 
green peas, and other truly English and ex- 
ceedingly palatable viands. One grows at 



IN ENGLAND. 119 

times a trifle weary of "the roast beef" — and 
roast mutton — "of old England"; but this 
meal had keen hunger for a sauce and was 
duly appreciated. 

No ; dyspepsia did not cloud our judgment 
in the matter. It is pretty well-established 
now that the thoughts and feelings do in time 
chisel the face into some expression of them- 
selves. And, even though Shakespeare, after 
the fashion of his time, may have drunk over- 
much sack and canary at the Mermaid Inn, 
and elsewhere, nevertheless he had oftentimes 
great and noble thoughts, and somewhere 
upon his countenance they must have left a 
slight trace. 

Doubtless the artist, by his very keenness 
of perception, is exposed to special tempta- 
tions from the sensuous side of his nature. 
But even though he be 

"Chance — swung between the sky and pit." 

he is by that very fact, sometimes lifted 
to the upper air, and must show some trace 
of his communication with the higher intelli- 
gences. 



CHAPTER VI. 

OXFORD. 

Ned was called back to London the day 
after our last visit to Stratford; and a few 
days later the rest of our company went on 
to Oxford. There is no more delightful fash- 
ion of spending a summer's day or two than 
in loitering about the colleges and cloisters of 
the University. Usually we finish our inspec- 
tion of city by a comprehensive drive through 
its streets; but, in Oxford, we began with a 
leisurely survey of the town from comfortable 
seats in a shabby-looldng cab. Occasionally, 
we stopped for a closer view of something 
particularly interesting as St. Mary's Church, 
whereof the features that I remember most 
distinctly are the twisted pillars outside and 
the tomb of Amy Robsart within. 

Is it not strange how one's thoughts cling 
about Amy's shadowy figure? She had no 
salient points of character to attract one's in- 
terest; and Helen declares that she is quite 



IN ENGLAND. 121 

sure Amy would not have cared so very much 
for Leicester had he been a less dazzling per- 
sonage ; that, in short, she was more in love 
with the idea of being chosen by this dashing 
cavalier than with Robert Dudley himself. 
Moreover, if the portrait which I bought at 
Kenilworth tells the truth about her, I see 
more beautiful and attractive girls than she 
every day — when I'm at home. They don't 
drive all the men who know them to despair, 
dueling, or the exploration of distant regions, 
either. I wonder if the masculine half of our 
race is less inflammable than of yore, or if the 
flames are more successfully hidden. In 
faith, I think, were I a man, I could fall in 
love, almost any day, with any one of several 
maids that I know. Perhaps I have hit upon 
the key to the puzzle ; in the multiplicity of 
attractions, the brothers are perhaps bewil- 
dered and unable to concentrate their affec- 
tions upon one object. 

No one can look at the Martyr's Monu- 
ment without a thrill of pride in his race. 
Those whom it commemorates were men oi 
like frailties with our own, with just such un- 



122 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

expected manifestations of weakness, and oc- 
casional hours of strength; yet they faced 
fagot and stake calmly, even triumphantly, 
for the truth as revealed to them. The story 
of Cranmer's burning his hand is pathetic, but 
full of comfort for all such as are given to 
asking themselves whether, at need, they 
could face obloquy and torture for the sake of 
principle. 

The favored youth of England ought to be 
keyed to high ideals and lofty purposes, pre- 
pared to live the strenuous life in a fashion 
helpful to themselves and the world. Some 
such results we have a right to expect from 
men who pass so many of their formative 
years at Eton, Rugby, and Oxford. If, in- 
deed, the mind be 

"Like the dyer's hand, 
Subdued to that it works in," 

then from living in this storied town, straying 
about Christchurch meadows and the college 
quadrangles, living in the halls, sitting in the 
libraries, and, in general, simmering in the 
atmosphere of the place, it would seem that 



IN ENGLAND. 123 

the Oxonian must absorb culture and right 
thinking, even though he lack diligence and 
regularity in prescribed study and attendance 
at lectures. 

Doubtless, however, most of these privi- 
leged creatures appreciate the blessings of 
the University town only when separated 
from it by time and space. 

What a joy to spend days and hours read- 
ing the priceless books and manuscripts in 
the Bodleian library, and to revive and 
strengthen one's notions of history by inter- 
views with the portraits here and in the other 
libraries and galleries. 

To look at the portraits of Chaucer and 
Shelley is to break the tenth commandment; 
or, at least, to wrench it badly. I wonder 
what Mrs. Browning meant by speaking of 
Chaucer's 

"infantine, 
Familiar clasp of things divine." 

Familiar he certainly is, at times ; but never 
infantine. It is a kindly face he shows us, look- 
ing out from beneath his dark hood, but the 



124 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

blue-grey eyes are keen; the mouth, for all 
its half smile, firm ; and, altogether, one 
gathers from his portrait that Dan Chaucer 
had a very sophisticated understanding of 
men and things. How could it be otherwise ? 
As a lad he knew the court of Edward III in- 
timately; and, as a vintner's son, doubtless 
knew certain foibles and short-comings of the 
great folk who dealt with his father. 

It is not probable that young Geoffrey was 
far away when the slogan sounded for some 
'fray of the 'prentices in the streets of Old 
London Town. Not that he was quarrel- 
some ; O, no ; merely a sane, healthy, natural 
boy ; and, as such he liked to be where things 
were happening. So, later on he went a-sol- 
diering, and by the fortunes of war spent 
some time in a foreign prison. Again, he 
hied him forth in state, ambassador for His 
Majesty the King. Truly, a varied life he led, 
this poet of ours, and never far from "the 
kindly race of men." For Chaucer, despite 
the fact that "a babbled o'green fields" in 
most delightful wise, is essentially a poet of 
humanity, laughing at, but loving, his kind. 



IN ENGLAND. 125 

We gather that there was much coarseness 
in the England of his day; but we find evi- 
dence that he knows what a true gentleman 
is like, 

"Of his porte as meke as is a mayde ; 
He never yit no vilonye ne sayde, 
In al his lyf, unto no manner wight; 
He was a verray parfight, gentil knight." 

and one may go far before meeting his better. 

As to the current superstition that Chaucer 
was unhappy in his domestic relations, one 
need only look at this portrait to be sure that 
the theory is nonsense. That is the face ot 
a man who could laugh Xantippe herself into 
good humor. To be sure there are docu- 
ments which show that the poet sometimes 
drew his salary in advance. Mayhap he smug- 
gled costly manuscripts into his library with- 
out consulting his wife, a course of conduct 
that has produced clouds of varying size and 
density upon the horizon of the married bib- 
liomaniac in all ages. 

Perhaps over-indulgence in "bookes blakke 
and rede'' at times produced a scarcity of coin 



126 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

wherewith to meet the demands of our tried 

friends 

i 

"The butcher, the baker, 

The candle-stick maker." 

Wherefore there was the sound of dissension 
in the Chaucer household, and Philippa lifted 
up her voice, while Geoffrey put on his cloak 
and stole away to wait for a calmer season. 
But beyond brief squalls of this nature, I de- 
cline to believe the unpleasantness went. 
Chaucer's frequent sarcastic reference to 
women in his poems, were due to the fashion 
of his times; he adopted them from his 
French models along with his April weather, 
which he knew very well doesn't come in 
England until May. 

But we must not let Chaucer's portrait 
monopolize our visit. Here is a tempting 
manuscript, the finest in the world of the 
"Song of Roland." If, before I tear myself 
away from the case containing this and simi- 
lar treasures, I am not arrested for an at- 
tempt at grand larceny, my family, on the ar- 
rival of the last Thursday in November, will 



IN ENGLAND. 127 

not need to seek further causes of gratitude ; 
the mission-boxes in their vicinage should 
overflow with thank-offerings. 

Yet the days which produced such marvels 
of the book-maker's art are called days of ig- 
norance. I am coming to the conclusion that 
knowledge and ignorance are distributed with 
tolerable evenness. The man who reads my 
gas-meter cannot enjoy Homer in the orig- 
inal nor follow Dante in his progress through 
the other world ; but he can make my bill of 
vast proportions, even in summer when the 
jets are rarely lighted. Verily, it is never safe 
to call any human being ignorant or stupid. 

In the gallery above the library hang pic- 
tures with which one would like to live for 
months. The portrait of the present king, 
painted during his student days, gives little 
promise of the proportions to which he has 
since attained. He looks a nice laddie, and 
his appearance affords some excuse for the 
furore one reads of in the old magazines 
which tell the story of his visit to America in 
the early sixties. 

Here are all our old friends, Pope, Addi- 



128 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

son, and their company, Erasmus, that enig- 
ma of Reformation days; the Duke of Wel- 
lington; the founder of the Sheldonian the- 
ater, dark and grim of face, but with exquisite 
hands shaded by his filmy lace ruffles. But 
Miss Bradford is pouring out information in 
her usual style, a style intended to convey to 
her hearers the impression that here is a very 
learned lady indeed, but which usually has the 
effect of making them very much in love with 
unpretending ignorance. Some of the infor- 
mation imparted is incorrect, and other some 
is of the sort possessed by everybody, but it 
all pours out steadily in a stately, slow-mov- 
ing stream, until perceiving that the rest of 
the visitors to the gallery are, like ourselves, 
growing weary and nervous, we manage — or 
rather Helen does, for she is skillful from 
long practice — to get the lady orator out of 
the gallery, and set out to ramble through the 
Magdalen gardens, trusting that they will 
not provide any learned disquisitions. 

We wander along Addison's walk quite 
peacefully, and agree that the great essayist 
displayed as good taste in his choice of a 



IN ENGLAND., 129 

lounging-place as in his use of English. 
Helen found a linden-blossom lying in the 
path, and gave it to me ; and now, whenever 
I open the volume to the leaf whereon the 
pale-green flower lies, the faint, sweet per- 
fume brings back in all its freshness and beau- 
ty the shaded walk, the river flecked with 
sunlight dropping through the over-hanging 
lime-boughs, the twittering of sparrows 
among the trees, the blue sky with its lazily- 
drifting clouds; all the sights, sounds, and 
odors of an English garden, with the added 
glamour of associations centuries old. 

At last, whether the wanderer move slowly 
or swiftly, his stay in Oxford draws to a 
close. He must gather his belongings, few 
or many and "move on." But the memory of 
the old town, with its winding streets, its busy 
market, its ancient colleges in their charmed 
gardens and fields, is one more bit of wealth 
laid away to count and gloat over in coming 
days. 



CHAPTER VII. 

LONDON TOWN. 

Does any American ever reach London 
without experiencing a curious thrill at the 
thought that, at last, he is in the capital and 
' treasure-city of his race? 

Coming from Oxford, one leaves the train 
at Paddington station. Now, in most of the 
modern English novels that I have read, 
somebody at a critical point in the story, 
either leaves or arrives by way oj Paddington 
station ; and cabbies are frequently given the 
order, "To Paddington." This is equally 
true, of course, with regard to Euston, Char- 
ing Cross, Victoria, or Waterloo. That is the 
beauty of London; while you are within its 
limits, no matter where you stand or sit, you 
can always play at being some interesting or 
important person, who has stood or sat just 
there. 

We took up our abode in Bloomsbury, at a 
house where Princess and I had staid during 



IN ENGLAND. 131 

several previous visits to London, in the very 
heart of Thackeraydom, overlapped by the 
kingdom of Dickens ; for did not the Os- 
bornes live in Russell Square, and Sairy 
Gamp in King's Gate Street? 

Ned was staying at a hotel nearer "the 
city;" and, in the intervals of business, beg- 
ged the privilege of going sight-seeing with 
us. When we had been in the metropolis 
about a week, I said to Princess one night : 

"Did you notice that Miss Bradford treat- 
ed Ned rather coolly this afternoon? What 
do you suppose is the matter?" 

"O, yes; I've noticed it once or twice be- 
fore. She has begun to suspect that he does 
not love her for herself alone." 

"If it had not been for her colossal conceit 
she would have discovered that fact about six 
weeks ago," I remarked calmly. "Every one 
else who has seen Ned and Helen together 
for five minutes has understood the situation. 
He isn't a bit silly either." 

"You are quite right," replied Princess 
with equal serenity. "You know, my dear, 
whenever I see an unmarried woman over 



132 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

thirty, I usually wonder what all the men who 
know her have been thinking about to leave 
her unappropriated; but, in Miss Bradford's 
case, I understood it perfectly. She is al- 
most unendurable, would be entirely so, if 
she were not Helen's aunt. It shows the ex- 
tent of Ned's earnestness that he has been 
able to treat her so very well, and to look 
after her comfort when he might decently 
have escaped. Now, my child, prepare your- 
self; for I'm going to impose a penance on 
each of us two. One of us will escort the fair 
and learned Minerva to some highly edifying 
place each day, while the other will chaperon 
Helen and Ned elsewhere. Once in a while, 
we'll rest and reward ourselves by joining 
forces, and all going for a drive or stroll to- 
gether." 

"But how will you manage to divide the 
company ?" 

"The lady Minerva is obtuse ; and, as you 
have justly observed, conceited ; she is be- 
sides, chief among her shortcomings and par- 
ent of many, utterly lacking in any sense of 
humor. We will ask her to go along with 



IN ENGLAND. 133 

us and explain things, we will have disagree- 
ments as to whose turn it is to enjoy her in- 
structions, and we will each develop a differ- 
ent hobby, so that she can not form us into 
a class of two. 

"I know it will be painful, dear," answer- 
ing my rueful expression, "especially when 
her explanations, always old and frequently 
incorrect, attract the attention of every one 
in the house ; but think of the good we ex- 
pect to accomplish." 

And to such hypocrisy and subterfuge did 
we descend; but for those sins we need not 
fear punishment in the hereafter; they 
brought retribution with them, daily and 
hourly. 

When one goes to the British Museum (un- 
accompanied by a Miss Bradford) one can 
pretend to be Dorothy Carteret, or any other 
delightful young woman given to haunting 
that gathering-place of storied ghosts. Mere- 
ly to ride along on the top of an omnibus and 
read the names of the streets is a joy beyond 
belief. Think of going down Chancery Lane, 
and thence by way of St. Martin's Lane to 
Charing Cross! Is it not all delightfully 



i34 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

Dickensey? Then to ride from St. John's 
Wood to the East India Docks through 
Clerkenwell, Mile End Road, and the Poplar 
Road, why, it is traveling from Bulwer L,yt- 
ton and D'Israeli to Besant, in the most inter- 
esting fashion imaginable. 

By taking a seat toward the front on the 
omnibus-roof, and bestowing a few coppers 
on the driver, the explorer may gain much 
valuable information. Some of it is liable to 
frequent repetition. I have had Apsley 
House pointed out to me seven times in the 
course of one day and evening; but this 
serves to impress valuable knowledge upon 
the mind. One also learns during the drive, 
if he puts his questions skillfully, a great deal 
about that interesting and important subject, 
"how the other half lives." 

There, are countless fascinating ways of 
becoming acquainted with London. One may 
trace out the Roman city with the aid of Be- 
sant; then, under the same wise and kindly, 
guidance, the Saxon town, following the old 
wall around what is still "the city," as distinct 
from the rest of the metropolis as the "town" 



IN ENGLAND. 135 

of the ancient Greeks from the "Lower 
Town ;" or one may dig into ecclesiastical 
history, collating and comparing the annals 
of the many ancient churches. One may fol- 
low Dickens about from Camberwell to to 
the Borough Road; or dwell in Brixton 
with "Edna Lyall's" excellent bourgeoisie; 
strengthen his impressions of mediaeval life 
and manners by hours spent in the Guild Hall 
and in the Record Office where lies the 
mighty Domesday Book; or, delight of de- 
lights, may revel in the old volumes that are, 
in Yankee phrase, "corded up" along Holy- 
well Street and Paternoster Row. What a 
paradise for the booklover of limited means. 
Here one may choose from the entire body 
of British verse, drama, fiction and history, 
not to mention a goodly number of works 
from over-sea; he may make selection among 
Latin volumes of all sizes and periods, to- 
gether with enlivening works on theology 
and medicine. Like a certain place mention- 
ed by our old friend, P. Vergilius Maro, 
"Bookseller's Row," alias Holywell St., is, to 



136 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

a certain class of persons, easy of access but 
very hard to leave. 

Nor is Holywell the only locality which 
tempts persons of the class referred to. There 
are attractive shops in Southampton Row, in 
Museum Street and the alleys leading there- 
from, where one may spend many a happy 
hour and part cheerfully with much coin of 
the realm. 

Princess and I have a ceremony known as 
"gloating," which we perform, like the two 
brothers in the song, "whenever we see fit." 
This celebration has nothing to do with either 
sun, moon, or signs of the zodiac ; it is wholly 
dependent upon our success in gathering me- 
mentoes of our stay in the various places that 
have attracted our wandering feet. The meth- 
od of procedure is to spread out upon the 
table or the bed, preferably the latter, as af- 
fording a greater superficial area, the spoils 
which we have gathered. Then we comment 
upon and rejoice over each article, anon hug- 
ging ourselves and each other, or performing 
an impromptu ballet, as we recall some satis- 



IN ENGLAND. 137 

fying or interesting circumstances connected 
with the various purchases. 

The collections are varied ; they consist of 
photographs, old engravings, casts, bits of 
marble, jewelry — in small quantities — carved 
wood, rude prints illustrative of local life and 
customs, gloves, shell combs and pins, cam- 
eos, scraps of lace, and old books. 

Our joy is tempered in these later years by 
thoughts of the New York Custom House. 
After our first visit to Europe, I carried home 
a large valise full of books, declared the same 
in all frankness, and was permitted to depart 
in peace, carrying my treasures with me, with- 
out fine or penalty imposed; but now, alas, 
times have changed ; there hath arisen in the 
land a prophet called Dingley, bearing an 
ominous "bill," and together they have de- 
stroyed the peace of the traveler. Books 
whose copyrights, if any they ever had, have 
long since expired, wood-cuts whose money 
value is absolutely nil are alike contraband in 
the eyes of the minions of the law; and the 
policy of protection becometh a stench in the 
nostrils of the returning student. 



138 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

The officials in Philadelphia are, as a rule, 
milder of manner and more courteous ot 
speech than their brethren in New York. 
Yet, even in the Quaker City, I saw an ama- 
teur photographer mulcted of twenty-seven 
dollars duty on negatives which he had made 
abroad, every bit of his material having been 
purchased in America before leaving. Prob- 
ably he was paying duty on the European 
sunlight of which he had made such free use. 
This may have been law, but it was neither 
justice nor common sense. However, our 
"infant industries" must be protected; and, 
under circumstances like these, one has only 
to pay the amount assessed or leave his pos- 
sessions on the dock. 

I looked on in wonder at the incident re- 
corded above ; and, when the matter had 
been settled, asked the victim's wife: 

"How did Dr. A. happen to have that 
amount left? Why, if I were compelled to 
pay any such sum as duty, I should be under 
the necessity of walking home." 

The lady smiled faintly, as she answered : 

"O, the Doctor never would have that 



IN ENGLAND. 139 

amount left. I had put aside a little, in case 
of emergency." 

Such a blessing is a thrifty wife. Princess 
looked at me significantly as she made a note 
of the incident for future use, i. e.: to terror- 
ize me when I am absolutely bent upon buy- 
ing inconvenient articles. 

But this is wandering a long way from Lon- 
don; and, truth to tell, we seldom allow the 
Custom House cloud to settle over us very 
heavily before we have passed the Quaran- 
tine Station. What is the use of worrying 
about duties till we know whether there is 
small-pox in the steerage or cholera between 
decks? Once in a way. Princess does invoke 
the cloud, when I am thinking of negotiating 
for some such small matter as the Elgin Mar- 
bles, the carved wood of the Hotel de Cluny, 
the bed-room furniture of the Pitti Palace, 
or a choice bit of Gobelin tapestry. 

I am told that it is not considered "good 
form" in London to visit the British Museum 
or the Tower, and that many members of the 
aristocracy have never seen either. Which 
shows that persons who sacrifice on the altar 



140 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

of "good form" miss much of the joy of liv- 
ing. But then it is quite likely that they 
would not enjoy the society of the Pharaohs, 
or of the Kings of Nineveh, or find deep 
pleasure in contemplating the drapery of Ca- 
lirrhoe. This goddess may or may not have 
had a beautiful face, but her figure, as here 
represented, is a delight to the eye, and one 
gets the impression that she knew how to 
wear her clothes. 

As for the horses on the other pediment of 
the Parthenon, in looking at them, I am 
obliged to stand with my hands behind me, 
lest the desire to pat their heads where the 
veins stand out in such life-like fashion, 
should overcome my respect for the polite 
placard which requests the visitor to refrain 
from touching the objects displayed. 

Miss Minerva came near spoiling the Brit- 
ish Museum for me. Under her guidance, I 
had elected to study the Egyptian monu- 
ments; but, according to her, I always ad- 
mired the wrong things, or the right things 
for the wrong reasons ; besides, she insisted 
upon telling me, in high metallic tones, a 



IN ENGLAND. 141 

great many things that I did not wish to 
know, about those old Egyptian heroes, who 
sit so calmly with their hands resting on their 
knees. The chief attraction about these 
sculptures is their suggestion of remoteness 
and mystery, which is all destroyed, or at least 
disturbed, when Miss Bradford begins to 
pour out dates and dimensions. 

But Princess took pity on me once, and I 
came down for a solitary peep at the Antin- 
ous, the Clytie, the Daphne, and those charm- 
ing baby cupids in the Roman room; and, 
one rainy day, Miss Minerva had neuralgia, 
and I stole away and spent a whole forenoon 
in peace with the Elgin Marbles. 

We have agreed among ourselves that 
sometime we will apply for permission to 
lodge a few weeks in Westminster Abbey; 
for only thus could one learn to know the 
dear old place. Ned has promised to look 
up some good restaurants in the neighbor- 
hood where we may take refuge when bitten 
by hunger; and we will explore till we are 
satisfied. 

Here one seems to have roots running 



142 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

down deep into the soil. The American 
moves about among the old memorials, not 
at all with the feeling of an alien, but rather 
with that of one who has just come into pos- 
session of a piece of ancestral property, beau- 
tiful, interesting, sacred, and his own by un- 
questioned title. 

Longfellow seems perfectly at home beside 
Dryden; and it is entirely a family matter, 
when we sit down before the tomb of Chau- 
cer, with his shrewd, kindly face looking at 
us from the window above, Browning and 
Tennyson lying near, and the busts and stat- 
ues of the members, great and small, of the 
brotherhood of letters crowding all about. 
So much is it our affair that we find it hard 
to forgive the sinner who spelled Ben Jon- 
son's name with a superfluous h. (How very 
English !) 

I fear pious Edward would think that his 
minster had been perverted from its original 
purpose as a place of the worship of God to a 
building for the glorifying of men. This, too, 
despite the daily service. The Pantheon at 
Paris has been formally secularized and set 



IN ENGLAND. 143 

apart for perpetuating the memories of the 
departed heroes, bards, and sages of the na- 
tion. Westminster Abbey is still called a 
church ! yet I doubt whether it impresses the 
visitor as a whit more ecclesiastical in char- 
acter than its neighbor across the channel. It 
is not for a church service that one goes to 
Westminster Abbey. Frankly, on a week- 
day, the service is regarded as rather an in- 
terruption to the serious business of the visit. 
From the Lady Chapel to the towers, and 
from the door of the north transept to the 
farthest cloister, every inch of the massive 
pile is crowded with mementoes of the civil 
and ecclesiastical history of England. It is to 
read this history in monument, window, and 
carven stone, that one comes to the Abbey ; 
and, before setting his foot inside, the visitor 
should steep himself, long and thoroughly, in 
Addison, Irving, Hawthorne, Farrar, Stanley, 
the old chronicles, any one and every one who 
has said anything worth while about the 
building. Once admitted, he should avoid 
vain babblers, official and otherwise, as he 
would a pestilence, and keep eye, mind and 



144 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

heart open for what the church itself has \o 
tell him. 

What an entirely new view of Henry VII 
is conveyed by the chapel which bears his 
name. We remember him chiefly as a wily 
politician, most canny in regard to the expen- 
diture of money. Yet, in all England, there 
is little architecture so richly ornamented as 
that of this chapel. Does not this suggest 
that he was aesthetic by choice, and niggard- 
ly from necessity only ? Something like this, 
Greene has told us ; but the testimony of the 
stone is more convincing. 

How one forgets all the unpleasant traits 
of James I, his pompous manners, his pedant- 
ry, his cowardice while one stands beside the 
cradle-tomb of the baby Princess Sophia. 
Grand as is the minster church, it emphasizes 
in some subtle way the human and not the 
official side of those who have built it or lie 
buried in it; and causes one to forget differ- 
ences of rank and flight of time, and remem- 
ber only the strong, deep-lying bond of kin- 
ship. 

When it came my turn to be chaperone I 



IN ENGLAND. 145 

spent several happy days with my charges, in 
rambling about Fleet Street, past the shop of 
Izaak Walton, into courts leading to the 
"Mitre" and "Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese," 
where Johnson and the other giants were 
wont to congregate, and Samuel laid down 
the law to his companions. I wonder how 
the latter enjoyed that sort of thing. It must 
have been a little tiresome to be listener all 
the time, however much wisdom one heard. 
If the other members of the Literary Club 
had been women, I venture to say, they 
would, sometimes at least, have given way 
to the impulse to talk all at once, and drown 
the leader's leonine rumble in a chorus of 
shrill treble. This would have been excellent 
discipline for Dr. Samuel. 

We enjoyed, each for our own reasons, 
walking along the street looking at the book- 
sellers windows and at the wares displayed 
in the other shops. (I can not make oath that 
my companions devoted their attention un- 
reservedly to the shop windows ; but being a 
discreet duenna, I did so). The display here 
is so entirely different from what one sees at 
10 



i 4 6 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

home ; and it is so very wholesome for us to 
learn that people may live and prosper, while 
doing things in ways totally different from 
our own. 

It is always well, when in Holywell Street, 
to take a little peep into St. Clement Danes, 
the church whose bells, according to the fa- 
miliar nursery rhyme, discourse sweet music 
about "oranges and lemons." There is some- 
thing very attractive about both this church 
and its neighbor, St. Mary-le-Strand, each 
standing alone in the midst of a busy street, 
the tides of life and trade surging by on either 
hand. As monuments of an elder time, they 
arouse an interest I am always unable to feel 
in St. Paul's. When I have seen the tombs 
of Chinese Gordon, of Wellington, Nelson, 
and Dr. Donne, and recovered a little from 
the shock of finding the monument to Corn- 
wallis in a place of honor, the real power of 
St. Paul's is exhausted. Is is very big and 
magnificent, but conveys the impression that 
it was, as the children say, "done on pur- 
pose," while the older churches are a spon- 
taneous growth. 



IN ENGLAND. 147 

Another attraction at St. Clement Danes is 
the pew often occupied by Johnson, in which 
with some expenditure of diplomacy — and 
coppers — one may sit down and meditate for 
a time. 

Farther down, near the entrance to Great 
Farringdon street, a wide thoroughfare which 
runs, during a part of its course, below the 
level of the neighboring ways, is the church 
of St. Bride's, which is well worth a visit. 
It is a bit of Wren's choicest work, and con- 
tains the tomb of no less a person than Sam- 
uel Richardson. 

If he now knows anything of the fate of 
his body, it must seem passing strange to him 
that his outworn mansion should be falling to 
decay in a spot so secluded. For Samuel, 
when he dwelt in that mouldering tabernacle, 
was fond of the social side of life, and was the 
recipient of much attention from the fair sex. 
Does he smile now, I wonder, recalling that 
marvellous creature — Sir Charles Grandison? 
And what does he think of the lovely Harriet 
Byron? What a commotion her appearance 
unfailingly created! Helen of Troy was 



148 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

scarcely more dangerous to the peace of man- 
kind. 

Is it not strange that both Richardson and 
his readers should have regarded Pamela as 
a moral work? "Pamela, or, Virtue Reward- 
ed." In reality, "Mr. B." was the person re- 
warded, and that with a wife far beyond his 
deserts. This, I maintain ; but Princess avers 
that I am entirely wrong, and that a husband 
of any kind was a reward for a poor girl; 
that, therefore, the title is perfectly correct. 
Ned, however, agrees with me, which, consid- 
ering the length of time I spent in decipher- 
ing the inscription on Richardson's monu- 
ment the afternoon that I went there in my 
capacity of chaperone, is only proper grati- 
tude on his part. 

Such naive pictures of English social con- 
ditions as are found in Richardson's novels, 
together with the revelations made by Addi- 
son, Steele, and Fielding, are likely to make 
a reader ask himself why the English should 
assume airs of superior virtue, when discuss- 
ing French morality. 

From St. Bride's Church we go on into 



IN ENGLAND. 149 

Great Farrington St., past Congregational 
House, a memorial to the dissenting minis- 
ters who gave up their charges under the Act 
of Conformity. Beyond this building, we 
pass the Meat Market, a view of which is 
likely to convert the visitor to vegetarianism. 
Not that the meat does not appear to be 
good; but there is such an enormous quan- 
tity of it. 

A little farther on, we find ourselves before 
the Blue Coat School. The working school 
is soon to remove to the country, perhaps has 
already done so; but the old buildings, rich 
in memories of Coleridge and Lamb, ought 
always to remain standing here. 

The Blue Coat boys seem to have realized 
that they were honored by the presence 
among them of these charity students. What 
a pity that we do not always know when we 
are in the best society. Schoolboys come 
nearer to doing so than most other persons. 

I wonder if that particular generation of 
schoolboys at Christ's Hospital was a more 
than ordinarily light-hearted one. Certainly 
the influence of Charles Lamb's sweet nature 



ISO PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

ought to have made them all joyous for life. 
Blessed are the cheerful, for they make sun- 
shine in shady places, is a much needed beat- 
itude for our hurried generation. There is 
no other virtue that better repays cultiva- 
tion ; and no man except Stevenson can give 
us so many valuable hints as to its nature and 
acquisition as that sunniest of burdened mor- 
tals, Charles Lamb. He had every excuse for 
discouragement that a man need present; 
yet, without any direct preaching on the sub- 
ject of cheerfulness, he has left behind him a 
trail of kindly light to help us find our way 
through life's dark places. 

Lamb was an out-and-out Londoner, living 
his life in the smoky streets of the old city, 
spending a few days now and then at Brigh- 
ton or Margate — resorts loved of the middle- 
class of his native town — finding the beauty 
and poetry of life on the crowded pavements 
and in the human interests about him. 

One happy day we all went together to the 
Tower. Fashionable England, I am told, 
does not visit the Tower. However, most of 
the English who emigrated to the New World 



•IN ENGLAND. 151 

were of the middle class; and we still have 
many of the sensible notions of the intelligent 
citizens and country-folk, who made a king 
to quake upon his throne, and eventually de- 
prived him of a head that seemed unfitted for 
the work required of it. Therefore, to us, ad- 
mirers of Raleigh, Drake, Frobisher, and 
others of the "men of Devon" and their kind, 
as well as of Sir Thomas More, Henry How- 
ard, and the rest of "the glorious dynasty, 
heirs of the block and axe," the Tower is a 
treasure-house of associations. The crown- 
jewels, with all their gold and gems, are cheap 
in comparison. 

I wonder if the thought of these illustrious 
predecessors did not bring comfort as well as 
warning to Henry Laurens, sometime envoy 
from the revolted colonies to His Majesty 
George the Third, an unwelcome envoy who 
was given lodgings at the charge of the coun- 
try to which he was accredited instead of at 
that of his home government. How would 
it seem now-a-days to be a prisoner here? 
"Prisoner in the Tower of London" sounds 
mediaeval even for Henry Laurens and the 



152 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

times of George III ; but then King George 
was obsessed by some rather mediaeval no- 
tions. 

The ancient pile seems a fortress, and a 
fortress only ; it is difficult to imagine pleas- 
ure-loving Edward IV established here, with 
all the luxury of his most luxurious court. 
It is hard to believe that even hangings of 
velvet and tapestry could convert this rough 
walled building into a palace. 

The place is full of ghosts, most welcome 
and interesting ones, entirely suited to the lo- 
cality. They are the true owners of His Ma- 
jesty's Tower, these men and women, so 
many of whose stories, so far as mortals ken, 
ended here on Tower Hill; criminals and 
martyrs, men, women, and children even, of 
every age and degree. How they throng 
about us, till they veil even the glitter of the 
crown-jewels and the whimsical dress of the 
beef-eaters. For what are state salt-cellars, 
the imperial diadem, even the Koh-i-noor, 
compared with the memories of those whose 
blood has so freely watered the soil of a care- 
less country? 



IN ENGLAND. 153 

Finally, we cease contemplating the old 
armor, the weapons of many patterns, and 
the various instruments of torture wherewith 
it was the custom of our pious ancestors, 
through much agony of body, to drive into 
the fold of safety the wandering souls of any 
poor wights whose creed differed from their 
own. 

Coming out into the Yard, we are permit- 
ted once more to resume our hand-bags and 
detachable pockets, taken from us when we 
entered, lest they might contain dynamite 
bombs and other explosives destined for the 
destruction of the building. 

The good-natured policeman, in answer to 
our inquiries about the nearest way to Lon- 
don Bridge, gives us minute directions about 
finding King William's statue — "the old 
king's statter," he says, as though William 
were of yesterday. From this point the 
bridge is plainly visible. The official cautions 
us against Great Tower Street, which he 
agrees with us is nearer, "but pretty rough." 

We follow his directions and in time reach 
the old bridge. It is not so very old, either ; 



154 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

but occupies the site of the bridge that span- 
ned the stream in the days when Southwark 
was a remote suburb and Westminster a coun- 
try village. 

We shall not cross this morning, as we are 
leaving the south side of the river for future 
visits. After two or three false starts and 
some altercation with persons of whom we 
inquire the way without first soothing their 
tempers by an application of copper, we find 
the street leading to the Swan Pier, and here 
we take a penny steamer for the Temple. 

Princess is not fond of steamers at any 
price. However, she has come to London to 
see everything interesting that our time will 
allow ; so she says bravely : 

"Don't look at me. Look at the water, the 
embankment, anything that interests you. 
The agony can't last long." 

Nor does it. We reach Temple Pier, when 
we have barely had time to learn how the 
smoke-stack ducks as we go under the 
bridges. Princess, despite her woe, is inter- 
ested in this proceeding. She always wishes 
to "shee the wheels go around." 



IN ENGLAND. 155 

At Temple Pier we land once more; and, 
as it is nearly noon, we decide to rest and 
lunch before doing any more visiting. So, 
with Ned as guide, we thread various narrow 
streets leading out into the Strand; and here 
at a quiet restaurant, one of Ned's favorite 
haunts, we sit down to eat a substantial Eng- 
lish luncheon. We take plenty of time about 
it, resting and chatting; and, when we have 
finished, return, through the maze by which 
we came, to the Temple. 

Middle Temple has a beautiful hall, and 
one is glad to know that "Twelfth Night" 
was, once at least, presented in such sur- 
roundings; grateful, too, are we to the 
slightly muddled old gossip Manningham 
who has preserved for us this precious bit of 
information, like the "two grains of wheat 
hid in two bushels of chaff." 

We hear much of the dignity of history and 
some of her devotees feel it incumbent upon 
them to speak lightly of all other branches of 
literature ; yet these scribbled recollections 
of the tipsy lawyer, the diaries of Evelyn and 
Pepys, the stray letters of any person whatso- 



156 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

ever who has recorded without affectation 
what he really saw in the world around him — 
these scraps and fragments are genuine his- 
tory. 

Are not Tom Pinch and pretty Ruth as 
real as any figures that ever walked here, 
even though the gentle ghost of Lamb flits 
through the halls and alleys, and the dust 
that once housed the erratic but lovable soul 
of Oliver Goldsmith lie somewhere here- 
about; just where, no one can say; the only 
thing positively known about the matter be- 
ing that his body does not repose under his 
tombstone. 

This state of affairs is quite unconventional 
enough to suit the kind-hearted Irishman. I 
never read the story of Goldsmith's life with- 
out a pang of something like envy. Think of 
tramping over the Continent, fluting one's 
way from village to village, seeing from the 
inside that life which most of us behold only 
as detached spectators, living like the birds of 
the air, beloved of dogs, beggars and chil- 
dren. 

Truly it sounds Arcadian, though doubt- 



IN ENGLAND. i 57 

less it had a squalid side; and one asks him- 
self how a man of the sophistical eighteenth 
century managed to compass such a holiday. 
Goldsmith was not really of his time ; he was 
a forerunner of the eccentric group of the 
next generation, a fitter comrade for De 
Quincey and Coleridge than for Burke and 
Johnson. 

A beautiful place is the round Temple 
Church, on whose pavement lie cross-legged 
the effigies of certain old Crusaders, suggest- 
ing in the faint half-light a peace they never 
knew, those hard-headed old knights, 

"Who laid about them at their wills, and died." 

That line of Tennyson's is a wonderfully 
good summary of the life of a mediaeval 
knight, one thinks at first; and yet, being hu- 
man they could not have spent all their time 
in smiting and being smitten ; they must oc- 
casionally, have sat down to rest and submit 
themselves to gentle influences. We know 
they went to church, sometimes; and such 
quiet figures as these must have reminded 
the fighters that to everything under the sun 



158 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

there is a time, and to them also would come 
at length this absolute quiescence. I won- 
der what, in their hearts, the restless old fel- 
lows really expected to do, when by dint ol 
pilgrimages, crusades, and masses they 
should have secured for themselves an en- 
trance into the Heavenly City. It is hard to 
believe that they took kindly to the idea of 
endlessly playing harps and singing psalms. 
Yet many of the fighters were also singers 
and improvisers of verse ; so it is possible 
that they were more resigned than the pres- 
ent generation to the thought- of spending 
eternity in warbling hymns. The modern no- 
tion of heaven is probably best expressed by 
the words of the Revelator, 

"And His servants shall serve Him." 

Over in the garden is the spot where grew 
the white and red roses of York and Lancas- 
ter — those thorny roses, whose fragrance 
provoked strife. The contending factions 
had at least an eye to the picturesque in 
choosing their badges. Will our party names 



IN ENGLAND. 159 

and insignia carry with them any such flavor 
of romance adown the next four centuries? 

We wander out of the garden, into the 
Strand once more ; thence by way of St. 
Clement Danes and Holywell street, through 
Bell's Yard, haunted by the oddities of 
"Bleak House," on into Portugal street and 
the Old Curiosity Shop, into whose authen- 
ticity we do not inquire too curiously. 

We stray along through Lincoln's Inn 
Fields, looking at the house which is said to 
have sheltered the original of Mr. Tulking- 
horn. We walk all the way around the quiet 
square, half believing that we shall meet Es- 
ther Summerson and her charge, or possibly 
Dick, Mr. Woodcourt, or even little Miss 
Flite. 

After dinner, if we are not too tired, we 
will go to the theater or the opera. 

These early days of July present many dra- 
matic and musical feasts. We may go to hear 
Bernhardt in "UAiglon-" Melba, Eames and 
the De Reszkes in some part of the wonder- 
ful Niebelung cycle or in "Faust;" or we may 
please ourselves with a play of Shakespeare's 



160 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

at the Lyceum Theater, given by Irving, El- 
len Terry, and their associated artists. 

Would that we might see them in "Becket" 
or "Cymbeline." However, we take the goods 
the gods provide, listen delightedly, like chil- 
dren off for a holiday, to "The Merchant of 
Venice," "The Bells," or "Robespierre," and 
go home to dream all night of the enchanted 
land that we have visited. 

The first time that we went to the theater 
with Ned, we came near having a family jar, 
as he was scandalized at the idea of our sit- 
ting elsewhere than in a box, and was deter- 
mined to buy all the tickets. At last, we suc- 
ceeded in convincing him that we had with us 
no costumes suitable for a box party; and we 
four women, being for once in entire har- 
mony, insisted upon a "Dutch treat." The 
young gentleman being told, politely but 
firmly, that he might go with us on those 
terms or not at all, finally yielded, and we sat 
in the amphitheater at two-and-six-pence 
each. We found ourselves among quiet, at- 
tentive people who had really come to hear 
the music; and, in consequence, did not 



IN ENGLAND. 161 

drown the orchestra or the voices by inane 
conversation. Sometimes a good-natured 
Londoner pointed out to the strangers from 
over the sea the celebrities in the boxes be- 
low; a statesman, a belle, or some scion of 
royalty. 

When the play is over, we hasten to catch 
an omnibus that shall land us near Southamp- 
ton Row, along which now quiet street we 
hasten toward Queen Square. Here, at area 
doors, sentimental maids are standing with 
"their young men," in attitudes indicative of 
all degrees of mutual affection; all entirely 
free from self-consciousness or anything sug- 
gesting that the "spooners" realize the pres- . 
ence of any other human beings on the same 
planet. There may be as much demonstra- 
tion of affection, as much embracing, oscula- 
tion, and squeezing of hands at back gates, in 
railway coaches, on the tops of omnibuses, or 
in parks in America; but I have never hap- 
pened to observe it, although I have wander- 
ed home from the opera at as late an hour in 
Chicago as in London. I have seen a man 

holding the hand of his female companion, 
li , 



162 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

in the sight of all the passengers, on the top 
of a coach during all the journey from Loch 
Katrine to Callender. He did the same, se- 
rene and unabashed, as though he had long 
arrears of that kind of thing to make up, and 
were utilizing his vacation for the purpose, 
deliberately and with malice aforethought. 
There is in the exercise which Princess has 
named "The British act" something so stolid 
and matter-of-fact , that it seems to the Yan- 
kee onlooker ludicrous rather than lyric. 

We went out to Hampton Court by omni- 
bus, and came home in a most leisurely way 
on a river steamer dependent upon the tide 
for sufficient water to float her. That is to 
say, Ned and Helen, with myself as chaperon, 
came home by water; Princess and Miss 
Bradford returned by train, and spent the 
evening in agonies of anxiety over our non- 
appearance. We left Kingston before they 
did, at half-past five ; and, as we did not 
reach home until after ten, there was some 
excuse for their uneasiness. 

On the way out, as we drew near to Twick- 
enham, we heard the sounds of a barrel-or- 



IN ENGLAND. 163 

gan. Coming nearer, we discovered several 
ragged children dancing to the lively strains. 
Presently a young man immaculately dress- 
ed, wearing a tall silk hat and a Prince Albert 
coat with a rose in the button-hole, joined 
the youngsters; and, when we looked back 
as we turned the corner, was footing it as 
gayly as any urchin among them. This pro- 
ceeding aroused my envy; it was so natural, 
so entirely innocent, and so utterly impossi- 
ble for me, a respectable spinster. It is that 
sort of thing which makes me feel that priv- 
ileges are unequally divided between men and 
women. Ned seeing my wistful looks, offer- 
ed to descend from the omnibus with me and 
lend his countenance and moral support 
while I "tripped the light fantastic." But 
even thus encouraged, my heart failed me. 

One gives a thought to brilliant, unhappy 
Pope, on passing through Twickenham; but 
begins already to watch for the spreading 
horse-chestnuts of Bushey Park, a truly ideal 
spot. 

Hampton Court, aside from the huge 
grape vine, the Raphael cartoons, and the 



164 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

portraits, is rather uninteresting. One wear- 
ies of successions of best chambers with state 
beds and gorgeous hangings; and for the 
cartoons one needs far more time than we 
care to give them to-day. The portraits 
grow monotonous after a little, and one be- 
comes aware of a desire to organize a society 
whose object shall be to provide fichus for 
the decolletees beauties depicted by Eely and 
Kneller. 

Now Windsor is in every way more satis- 
factory. In the first place, it looks like a 
fortress-castle, while all its surroundings are 
picturesque. One may expect to see old ac- 
quaintances anywhere, under the shadow of 
the grey walls that shoulder themselves into 
sight, dwarfing the town into insignificance; 
in the tower where Jamie Stuart watched his 
ladye in the court below, and then wrote mel- 
odious verse about her; in the curfew tower, 
in the chapels, in the park, and across the 
bridge at Eton. 

Windsor, like most other English villages, 
is worth all the trouble one takes to get there 
on trains that never appear to start for any 



IN ENGLAND. 165 

definite point, and about whose "connec- 
tions" (this is distinctly American) with 
other trains, English officials are, on princi- 
ple, strictly non-committal. 

Even if the castle were not rich in the 
memories of at least nine centuries, and filled 
with treasures of art, there would still be a 
chance of searching for traces of Dame 
Quickly and her friends and sweet Anne 
Page; there would still be beautiful Eton 
Chapel; and, failing all these, one could go 
to Stoke Pogis churchyard, or make his way 
to Horton, thence to view Windsor as Mil- 
ton saw it in his high-hearted youth. 

But Windsor has its own charm, and all 
these other glories added thereunto. Hence- 
forth all stories of knight and ladye fair, of 
court intrigue and deeds of derring-do, will 
have as their background a castle something 
like Windsor. 

We really had time to see and enjoy every- 
thing, including "Ruben's room, with Rube 
himself up over the door," as we were in- 
formed by a functionary with a nasal twang 
that brought up memories of Cape Cod. We 



166 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

reveled in recollections of that visit for 
months afterward; for we walked sedately 
about the beautiful rooms and even paused 
some minutes at a time before objects of spe- 
cial interest, not being driven rapidly from 
one entrance to the other, like leaves before 
a November blast. Neither were our 
thoughts distracted by anxious questionings 
of ourselves and each other as to the proper 
amount to be given in "tips;" for it is writ- 
ten that gratuities to attendants are strictly 
forbidden. Herein we found further cause 
for respecting the Majesty of England. 

As Miss Bradford and Helen did not know 
when they might cross the ocean again, they 
had from time to time discussed the feasibil- 
ity of spending a fortnight on the Continent. 
After much consultation of guide-books and 
many visits to tourist offices, they had de- 
cided upon going by way of Canterbury to 
Dover and thence to Ostend. They would 
spend a few days in Antwerp and Brussells 
and then go to Cologne, leaving that city for 
a journey up the Rhine as far as Heidel- 
berg, and thence by rail to Paris. 



IN ENGLAND. 167 

I had a wild throb of excitement and 
thought of abandoning all previous plans 
when Paris was mentioned, but Princess was 
firm, and Miss Bradford and her niece set 
out alone. 

"Do you suppose Ned will have business 
in Paris early next week? And how do you 
think Miss Bradford will receive him?" 

"He will certainly have business there," 
answered Princess to whom I propounded 
the above questions; "and, by the time he 
arrives, Miss Minerva will doubtless be glad 
to see some one who can speak a little de- 
cent French. 

"Doesn't she speak French? I'm sure I 
heard her say she did." 

"She thinks she does, but it is of 'the schole 
of Stratford-atte-Browe ;' while Helen, who 
is a fair German scholar, frankly confesses 
that she never got beyond reading French. 
Miss Bradford is so sure she knows every- 
thing and can do everything in the best way, 
that she is bound to try to set the French 
government or the municipal authorities of 



168 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

Paris right on some point, and she will sorely 
need help." 

"Yes," I agreed, "you are right; if, before 
Ned appears the good lady gets into two or 
three scrapes owing to her ignorance of the 
language and her general bumptiousness, she 
will be ready to welcome him as an angel of 
light." 

"Yes, Neddy speaks the lingo exceedingly 
well. Old Professor Dupres managed to 
hammer the language into our heads and fas- 
ten it to our tongues, if he did have a villain- 
ous temper and emphasize his instructions by 
throwing inkstands and rulers at us." 

"Besides, the laddie has sense and a cool 
head," I added, "it is to be hoped the fates 
will be propitious in choosing the time of his 
arrival." 

One day, after Miss Bradford and Helen 
had left us, Princess and I started for a long 
day's ramble. We took our luncheon of bis- 
cuit, fresh fruit, and cheese, neatly tied up in 
paper and deposited in the netted bag which 
serves as base of supplies and trophy-case on 
these excursions. The bag is often rather 



IN ENGLAND. 169 

limp when we set forth ; but, ere we return at 
nightfall, has grown as interesting as a boy's 
pocket; and we are ourselves often surprised, 
in emptying the receptacle, at sight of the 
varied treasures we have accumulated. 

We spent this day in the heart of old Lon- 
don. We took an omnibus down High Hol- 
born (anglais 'Igh 'Obun) landing near the 
Mansion House. Thence we found our way 
about the crooked streets to Bow Church — 
(St. Mary-le-Bow) another bit of Wren's 
work. This visit we made in honor of Dick 
Whittington and his cat; but although the 
crypt was an interesting bit of early architec- 
ture, the bells were silent regarding our fu- 
ture. 

We followed tortuous paths through Lit- 
tle Britain to the Church of St. Bartholomew 
the Great, which is near to Smithfield. I 
never know how I reach this edifice, probably 
with the exception of St. John's chapel in the 
tower, the oldest church in London. Ac- 
cordingly, each visit has the fresh joy of orig- 
inal discovery. The church is so enclosed by 
tall buildings, that, until fairly in its yard, one 



176 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

hardly realizes its nearness. It is one of the 
few things about which the nearly omnis- 
cient London policeman does not always 
give clear directions. 

We sat down for a time in the cool, dark 
crypt, to rest our eyes and steady our nerves 
with the sight of the Norman arches and the 
tomb of the versatile founder of the church, 
the priory, and the hospital. What a chequer- 
ed life he led, this mediaeval adventurer; 
fighting with Hereward the wake against the 
too successful William, then becoming a min- 
strel and dependent upon William's son; and, 
finally, ending his days as prior of the mon- 
astery that he had founded. What a ro- 
mance is here, could we only disentangle the 
interwoven threads. 

Leaving this torso of a once great eccle- 
siastical foundation, we go for a time to wan- 
der about Smithfield Market, trying to realize 
that just here were burned those martyrs 
whose fate has caused Mary Tudor to come 
down to posterity with such a sinister epithet 
prefixed to her name. 

Poor, unhappy woman, whom hard fate 



IN ENGLAND. • 171 

called to a throne. How far more content 
had she been to retire to a convent and spend 
her time in the practice of those religious 
rites to which she attached so much import- 
ance. Despite her cruelties, Mary is more 
to be pitied than blamed — a woman who had 
no girlhood and no friends. 

We take a look at St. Bartholomew's Hos- 
pital, still one of the most important institu- 
tions of the kind in all London; feast our 
eyes for a few minutes on the exterior of the 
building that was once Charterhouse School, 
a fortunate institution that numbers among 
its children noisy, rough, yet lovable Dick 
Steele ; Addison, the sedate and polished ; 
and their biographer, who has made the eigh- 
teenth century live again, our guide through 
Vanity Fair, satirical yet kindly Thackeray, 
whose laughter often lies so close to tears. 

Still further on in the maze, near the old 
Jewish quarter, and bounded by a fragment 
of the old city wall, lies St. Giles Cripplegate, 
beneath whose ancient roof lie buried Foxe, 
of the "Book of Martyrs," and John Milton. 

Before the old black marble altar, Oliver 



172 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

and Elizabeth Cromwell were married, ere 
the throne of the Stuarts had begun to quake 
at the word of the Lincolnshire farmer. 
Above the altar is a beautifully tinted eye, 
a stained glass window designed by Reyn- 
olds. 

The parish of St. Giles Cripplegate must 
have been strongly tinctured with Puritan- 
ism even before the days of the Common- 
wealth ; and its spirit evidently changed little 
when Charles II returned to the throne of his 
fathers. 

The parish is a type of the real heart of 
England. Changes might come at court, 
frivolous nobles follow and outdo the exam- 
ple of a frivolous king ; but middle-class Eng- 
land move steadily on in the path she had 
chosen, the path that led to freedom in 
church and state, to purity and strength in 
the home. The good work of Cromwell and 
his followers was not undone by the Restor- 
ation; some of the excesses of Puritanism 
were checked by contrary excesses, but the 
vital part remained and grew, the seed of the 



IN ENGLAND. 173 

best things in modern English life and char- 
acter. 

We pass by Finsbury Circus, a name which 
recalls the sometime owner of a large liv- 
ery stable in the neighborhood, who in the 
course of time and nature was promoted to 
be the grandfather of John Keats. The com- 
bination is paradoxical; nothing that we can 
discover in his parentage accounts for the 
Hellenic genius of Keats. It is a comfort to 
find evidence that there are some things un- 
accounted for by either heredity or environ- 
ment. 

At last, rambling along in leisurely fash- 
ion, stopping to look at everything that 
promises to be of interest, we come to the 
cemetery known as Bunhill Fields. Here, 
being tired and hungry, we sit down on a 
shaded bench outside, and peacefully eat our 
luncheon, enjoying the coolness and quiet, 
the freedom from dust and confusion. 

Having thus refreshed the inner woman, we 
enter the cemetery and begin our search for 
the tomb of Susannah Wesley and those of 
George Fox, Defoe and Bunyan. The graves 



174 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

are close together and there are many inter- 
esting things to see ; but we stop for nothing 
till we have found the plain grey obelisk 
erected, by penny contributions of the chil- 
dren of England, to the author of "Robinson 
Crusoe." In the long run, the right thing 
happens in this changeful world ; and after 
two centuries, the neglected grave has re- 
ceived due honor from those who owe most 
to the man whose dust it holds. 

I know a bright young girl who says that 
she would not have cared to have Defoe for 
a personal acquaintance ; because she should 
have thought whatever he saidr was in some 
way a joke at her expense ; but she adds, "I 
like to know him across the ages." Personal 
acquaintance with the wiry, active, keen-eyed 
man may have had its drawbacks. Many a 
man is interesting in a book who would have 
been "gey ill to live wi' " through the wear 
and tear of every day experience; but I 
should have been willing to be laughed at, if 
I might have known the man of many ideas, 
who made even the pillory a center of re- 
spectful interest and an advertising medium. 



IN ENGLAND. 175 

How well he would have fitted into twentieth 
century life ; what ways he would have found 
for expending his tremendous energies; and 
what commotions he would have stirred up, 
this early Independent in politics and re- 
ligion, this man who lived the strenuous life 
in most strenuous wise. 

Not far away, calmly reposing upon his 
tombstone, a book tucked under his arm, 
lies that other benefactor of childhood, John 
Bunyan, who wrote the story of a man who 
left home, "the book didn't say why," a tale 
regarding which we must concur with the 
verdict of Huckleberry Finn, "The state- 
ments in it was interestin' but tough." 

Everybody should read "Pilgrim's Pro- 
gress" in childhood ; it never can mean so 
much at any later period of life. The alle- 
gory causes no trouble, though it is, all along, 
subconsciously felt; the book is, to all intents 
and purposes, a wonderful story of fairies and 
giants, enchanted palaces, and magic regions ; 
it is not exceeded in mystery and terror by 
even the "Arabian Nights." Such, at least, 
is my personal experience. I grew intimate 



176 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

with the book between the ages of six and 
nine, in the course of long vacations spent on 
my grandfather's farm. No children's books 
were found in that Knickerbocker-Puritan 
household; so my literary appetite satisfied 
its cravings with an old copy of the "Na- 
tional Fifth Reader," filled chiefly with se- 
lections from English writers of the eigh- 
teenth century; the narrative and poetical 
portions of the Bible; and, lastly, the work 
of the inspired tinker of Bedford. 

What delicious thrills of terror I experi- 
enced as I followed Christian through the 
Slough of Despond and the- Interpreter's 
House; past the lions into the House Beau- 
tiful; saw him imprisoned in the castle of 
Giant Despair ; watched breathlessly his bat- 
tle with Apollyon; and hung upon his foot- 
steps as he made his way through the Valley 
of Shadow out into the Land of Beulah. 

My "Pilgrim's Progress," which differed 
in various ways from Bunyan's, had its locale 
in the maple grove beyond the orchard ; and, 
on grey, cloudy days, nothing would induce 
me to pass the orchard fence, unless escorted 



IN ENGLAND. 177 

by some able-bodied man of the family, who 
played, all unwittingly the role of Greatheart 
to my Christiana or Mercy. This was be- 
cause I feared lest Apollyon or Giant De- 
spair might swoop suddenly down and bear 
me away to some dark fate, forever unknown 
to my disconsolate relatives. 

These ideas remained securely locked in 
my own breast. With the reticence of child- 
hood, I concealed alike my joy in the beauty 
of the story, my delicious terror over the 
tragic portions, and my bewilderment at its 
inconsistencies. For I was bewildered. I 
never troubled myself about finding any 
meaning in the book of Revelation, taking 
for granted that its beauty was all any rea- 
sonable person ought to expect to find there- 
in — that was "art for art's sake," if you 
choose. But I did wonder why, if the City of 
Destruction were such a dangerous place, 
Christian should go away without his wife 
and children. Most of the fathers I knew 
would have removed their families from such 
a locality by force, if necessary. Then, too, 
there was no record that he ever wrote to 



178 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

them, sent them any money, or received 
much information concerning them. Most 
reprehensible conduct in a husband and 
.father, this seemed to me ; and yet the au- 
thor appeared to think Christian's behavior 
in these respects entirely proper and praise- 
worthy. 

Despite the puzzles, I loved the book ; and 
now I love the fiery, brave, restless soul of 
its author. There are people, very sensible, 
well-regulated, highly respectable persons, 
who affirm that the great allegory is the prod- 
uct of a morbid mind ; and some even de- 
clare that its author was insane^ Perhaps so ; 
but if he were, some of the rest of us would 
like to be afflicted with a mental aberration 
of the same type. 

Here is the grave of the mother of John, 
Charles, and seventeen lesser Wesleys. "Su- 
sannah, a lily," says the dictionary. From 
what we know of her character, we conclude 
that this English Cornelia with such a well- 
filled jewel casket, deserved her name, for 
purity and sweetness ; but she was not of the 
lilies that "toil not neither do they spin." 



IN ENGLAND. 179 

The modern imagination stands appalled 
before the audacity of those heads of large 
families who so coolly assumed responsibility 
for the temporal and spiritual well-being of so 
many human souls. To feed and clothe from 
a dozen to twenty children is somewhat of a 
task; but that is a minor matter. It is the 
thought of training them for life with all its 
possibilities of good or evil that gives one 
pause — a human soul is so precious; and, 
when we know so little about our own, it is 
such a grave responsibility to venture to di- 
rect the souls of others. Considering the 
amount of blind experimenting indulged in 
by parents and teachers, it speaks well for 
the general tendencies of children that, on 
the whole, they develop so well. 

We spend a little time in Wesley Memorial 
Chapel across the street from the cemetery, 
and then climb to the top of a tram which 
will take us pretty near to the Bank of Eng- 
land, the first station on our homeward jour- 
ney. It is because of weariness, also because 
we have gone over the ground once on this 
day, and desire to save time, that we choose 



180 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

to return by tram instead of on foot. So we 
make our way back, passing Finsbury Circus 
again, threading winding streets whose 
names have grown familiar in the pages of 
Dickens, Besant, Hare, and Hutton; change 
near the Bank to an omnibus; and pursue 
our tranquil way, catching glimpses, here of 
the barber-shop that once as a palace shel- 
tered Henry VIII and his magnificent Car- 
dinal, then of Holborn Viaduct and the City 
Temple ; and again of the quaint old houses 
near Staples' Inn, a sight of which place al- 
ways revives one's curiosity about the rest 
of the story of "Edwin Drood." I have in- 
vented half a dozen conclusions for that grue- 
some tale, all rather satisfactory in parts ; but 
I should like to know how Dickens himself 
would have completed the structure which he 
began. 

"Ah ! who shall lift that wand of magic power, 

And the lost clue regain? 
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower 
Unfinished must remain." 

Sometimes, if we find ourselves at a spot 



IN ENGLAND. f 181 

remote from Queen Square when' the after- 
noon is drawing to a close, we betake our- 
selves to the nearest station of the Under- 
ground Railway, and reach our abiding place 
by a short cut. As a time-saving device, "the 
underground" is a success; but, as a pleas- 
ant means of transit, not much can be said 
for it. I always feel that I have strayed into 
one of Dante's upper circles and am doomed 
to go around and around in it for an indefi- 
nite period; it is dark even in the station; 
the air is damp, stuffy, and ill-smelling; and 
it is exceedingly difficult to find out when 
one has reached his destination. I say ner- 
vously to Princess: 

"Can you tell what this station is?" 

She responds gloomily: 

"I do not know whether it is 'Venus Soap' 
or 'Massawattee Tea;' both names are very 
much in evidence." 

At last, by dint of much watching, worry- 
ing and questioning, we manage to effect a 
landing at the right place. We return to the 
upper air, feeling that we have made one 
more escape from the ante-room of the In- 



182 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

fernal Regions, and resolved that it will be 
long ere we again desert the surface of the 
earth and the brooding of the overarching 
sky, even to save that most valuable of com- 
modities to the American, time. 

Another long, delightful day we spent once 
as I shall tell. We started directly after 
breakfast, taking an omnibus to Hyde Park. 
Here we entered near the colossal and rather 
unmeaning statue called "Achilles," which 
poses near the drive in order to recall once 
more the manifold virtues of the Duke of 
Wellington. How that dignified gentleman 
would stare, could he see this remarkable ob- 
ject which a grateful country has set up in 
his memory. Why Achilles to represent 
Wellington? Why not Hector? Possibly 
because the Trojan prince was defeated in his 
one great military undertaking ; but that was 
no fault of his, on his merits he should have 
won; and he presents far more points of re- 
semblance to the Iron Duke than does the 
fickle, though fascinating Greek. 

We go along the flower-bordered way, 
pausing for a glance at Byron, sitting in 



IN ENGLAND. 183 

mournful solitude within the railed enclosure 
at the right. A good portrait of Byron 
never fails to be a pleasant object to the eye ; 
for, barring the troublesome foot, he "looks 
his part" of a poet of generous enthusiasms. 
Strange it is, that the storms and bitterness 
of his unhappy life have left so little impress 
upon his face. Was it because the evil was 
temporary and the better qualities perma- 
nent in his strangely mingled nature? 

The great scarlet begonias, mingled with 
purplish-blue ageratum and other flowers, 
"lovelier than their names," as they have 
need to be, so marvelous is their nomencla- 
ture, beguile our walk, until, without realiz- 
ing the distance over which we have wander- 
ed, we find ourselves near the Serpentine. 
Soon we cross the little bridge, and are in 
Kensington Gardens, another restful place 
that seems, this bright summer morning, as 
remote from the roar and bustle of London 
as though it were on some distant planet. 

At the farther side of the gardens, we 
come upon that strange composite, the Al- 
bert memorial. Here, under a wonderfully 



184 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

carved, gilded and colored, Gothic canopy, 
sits the figure of the Prince Consort, all be- 
gilt. This, monument furnishes another in- 
stance of what appears to be the modern 
English idea of doing honor to the nation's 
heroes. It seems, for some occult reason, 
necessary to make the statues as large as 
possible, and as little as may be in accord- 
ance with the known habits and tastes of the 
persons commemorated. Prince Albert was 
undoubtedly a simple, unassuming gentle- 
man, of sound judgment and refined tastes; 
yet he is doomed to sit for ages under this 
ugly canopy, a tawdry, gilded figure, as in- 
harmonious with its surroundings as with the 
nature of the man whom it is meant to honor. 
The base of the pedestal is both beautiful 
and symbolic. The sculptured groups rep- 
resenting Science, Agriculture, Manufac- 
tures, and Commerce, with those below typi- 
fying the four quarters of the globe, as well 
as the bas-reliefs of famous sculptors, poets, 
musicians and painters, are full of spirit and 
life ; and suggest the varied interests that oc- 
cupied the time and thought of the man 



IN ENGLAND. 185 

whom England was so fortunate as to claim 
as the consort of her Queen. 

The group representing America, the slen- 
der maiden guiding the wild bison by means 
of a star-tipped wand — intellect and spiritual 
power subduing and directing the forces of 
nature — is very striking and suggestive; but 
in view of the alarm in Europe over Ameri- 
can aggression (!!) why may we not claim 
the entire eight groups as our symbols ? 

Speaking of American aggression recalls a 
conversation in which we shared at the home 
of a friendly Londoner to whose family we 
had letters of introduction. The family were 
very kind to us, entertained us under their 
roof and showed us various attentions for 
which we hope they will all be rewarded by 
those just influences that bring friends to 
him that showeth himself friendly. 

The man of the house aforesaid had drawn 
from Princess a vigorous defense of the 
Union policy during the Civil War ; and find- 
ing her intractable on that subject, attacked 
me anent our territorial expansion. After a 



186 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

few preliminary passes, I made a home thrust 
by saying, 

"But we're ,only following the example you 
set us." 

The gentleman laughed genially as he ad- 
mitted, 

"Quite right. You see we wish to do all 
the grabbing ourselves." 

So that international difficulty was amica- 
bly settled. To tell the truth occasionally, 
even about one's country, is an effective and 
wholesome method of clearing up the atmos- 
phere. 

On this happy pilgrimage, we omitted the 
interior of the Albert Memorial Hall, and, 
after lunching comfortably in a little pavilion 
hard by in the gardens, v/andered on to the 
South Kensington museum. 

Of course, one cannot see everything 
worth seeing in this collection in a half-day's 
visit. It is something to be dipped into that 
one may determine what is most valuable to 
himself, and then return to spend as much 
time as possible with the things he likes. 
The carved Asiatic woods, together with the 



IN ENGLAND. 187 

models of Indian buildings and other archi- 
tectural reproductions, are possibly the most 
interesting parts of the vast collection. Miss 
Bradford one day when she went to the mu- 
seum with me set the seal of her disapproba- 
tion upon my favorites, by saying loftily, 

"O, I don't care for these models of cathe- 
drals, I've seen most of the real buildings." 

One might as well say he did not care for 
a portrait, because he had some time or other 
seen its original. In fact, it is with buildings 
as with nature, we see them best when some 
one who knows and loves them, calls our at- 
tention to their especial beauties. The sight 
of a copy of some building that I know is like 
coming upon a familiar portrait in a strange 
gallery; and often the model, being smaller 
in size and nearer to the eye, reveals interest- 
ing details overlooked in the original. 

But Miss Bradford represents a class, made 
up largely, I regret to say, of American wo- 
men. Their behavior seems to be an out- 
growth of the belief that knowledge is to be 
acquired chiefly for purposes of display, and 
not for one's personal comfort and satisfac- 



188 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

tion, nor yet for the elevation of one's 
thoughts and sentiments; they have knowl- 
edge, but neither wisdom nor culture. After 
I have been beset in room after room by the 
high metallic buzzing of one of these would- 
be superior persons, I cry out in spirit, if not 
audibly, "And the L,ord God sent the hor- 
net;" sit down in a corner to give the crea- 
ture a chance to move on and away; and fall 
to self-examination with a view to determin- 
ing what heinous crime I have committed, 
that I should be doomed to this particular 
form of punishment. Whenever I had Miss 
Bradford on my hands, however, and had not 
only to endure her dissertations, but the won- 
dering and pitying, or irritated, glances of 
the other visitors, I consoled myself with the 
thought that I was suffering in a good cause. 

Leaving the Museum, we took an omnibus 
which put us down near Westminster Abbey, 
where we spent the remainder of the after- 
noon in the Poets' Corner. 

Princess and I like, occasionally, to visit 
the Parliament buildings and the Abbey on 
the same day. Both structures have so much 



IN ENGLAND. i8g 

to tell of the history of England and her peo- 
ple that to go from one to the other is like 
reading successive chapters in an illustrated 
serial story. 

The earliest chapter of the story is illu- 
minated in the series of King Arthur frescoes 
in the Queen's Robing Room. What a hold 
that possibly mythical king has taken upon 
the mind of the western world. If he were 
not an actual person, he ought to have been ; 
history has neglected an opportunity, if she 
did really leave him out. 

The Princes' chamber, with its Tudor por- 
traits, reminds one again of that royal scoun- 
drel, King Henry VIII. Truly any fair dame 
on whom he cast admiring glances, must 
have felt an almost irresistible inclination to 
exercise the muscles of her neck in order to 
make sure that her head was securely fasten- 
ed in its place. Nor were lovely ladies' heads 
alone unsafe ; the axe was much in demand in 
those days for cutting down any object whose 
outlines disturbed the royal eye. 

In the Commons' Corridor, one pauses to 
recall his Whittier before the painting of 



iqo PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

"Last Sleep of Argyle ;" while in the Peers' 
Corridor, every American lingers near 
Cope's "Departure of the Mayflower." If 
all the consequences of the sailing of that lit- 
tle boat had been foreseen, would she have 
been allowed to go ? Yet who, with the wild- 
est imagination, could have prefigured every- 
thing in that long chain of events? Then, 
too, King James had his hands full with the 
malignants who stayed at home ; and doubt- 
less, would have been glad, in any case, to 
purchase a little quiet for himself, though at 
the price of much trouble for some far-off 
successor. 

One feels, especially, the intimate relation 
between the Puritan who stayed at home and 
him who, more adventurous or less patient, 
sought a haven in the New Land, when he 
sees, so near together, this Mayflower pic- 
ture and that other of the House of Com- 
mons refusing to give up the five obnoxious 
members, at the command of a king who 
overstepped his constitutional authority. 
What a change in sentiment it marks that 
such pictures find an honored place here 



IN ENGLAND. 191 

among the memorials of England's progress ; 
and how the most insensible of us must feel 
the kinship to which these two paintings bear 
such an eloquent witness. 

St. Stephen's Crypt is an attractive spot, 
both for its own beauty and its statues of 
some of the most interesting men who have 
figured in Parliamentary history. They make 
up a goodly company; but perhaps the most 
striking among them is the figure of Hamp- 
den, the leader of that movement which end- 
ed by putting into the hands of the people's 
representatives, among English-speaking 
races the wide world over, the power of the 
purse. This statement of the principle may 
sound mercenary, but it is high political 
ethics. 

The rooms devoted to the Commons and 
the Peers are a trifle disappointing. For 
places wherein such weighty business is. 
transacted, they seem small and over-crowd- 
ed; and one turns with a sense of relief to 
Westminster Hall, the Hall of William Ru- 
fus, whereof our old friend Macaulay hath 
had somewhat to say in sounding periods, 



192 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

that echo in our ears as we pass through the 
doorway. The hall was repaired and given a 
new roof in the days of Richard II, our still 
older friend, Geoffrey Chaucer, being Mas- 
ter of the Works. Dan Geoffrey must have 
been a man both busy and capable. 

From the old hall, we go again to the 
Chapter House of the Abbey, in honor of the 
early Parliaments held there, the monks of 
Westminster, to their credit be it said, hav- 
ing a healthy and honest belief in govern- 
ment by the people. 

The early ecclesiastical history is quite 
fully written in the glass of -the windows. 
There must have been much rough humor in 
those old days, if one may judge from the 
representation of the famous quarrel for pre- 
cedence between the Primate of England 
(Archbishop of York) and the Primate of all 
England (Archbishop of Canterbury). That 
was a fine distinction, indeed; but then the 
old theologians were subtle casuists. 

A little peep into the Jericho Parlor and 
another into the Jerusalem Chamber form 
not a bad finish for our historical survey. 



IN ENGLAND. Ig3 

The latter room is one of the most interest- 
ing spots hereabouts. There is nothing in 
particular to see except the paneling of olive- 
wood from the neighborhood of the Holy 
City, and a picture of the death of Henry IV. 
Poor Henry of the stormy life, almost as sad, 
though it seemed more prosperous, as that of 
his grandson. 

It is the associations of this room that lend 
it dignity. Here, Caxton, on his return from 
Flanders, set up his printing press. Who 
shall tell whether that venture of his has 
brought more of good or evil ? Of good, let 
us hope, since intelligence is ever better than 
ignorance ; and man must come, at last, 
though blunderingly and with much travail 
of soul, into his inheritance of wisdom, his 
means of subduing the earth and the earthy. 
Who yet has begun to dream what possibili- 
ties are wrapped up in that innocent sound- 
ing phrase: "Subdue the earth?" Shall we 
some day learn so to control material forces 
as to direct the rain into an appointed chan- 
nel, and harness the whirlwind to machines 
wherewith it shall produce man's bread and 



13 



194 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

not destroy it? Shall we, moreover, learn to 
subdue the earthy in ourselves, and bring 
about the reign of righteousness and peace 
in the world? Verily such things as these I 
do expect, and that ere long, as history 
counts time ; for the evolution of the world is 
toward better things. 

In this same room, Elizabeth Woodville, 
widow of Edward IV, gave into the hands of 
their loving uncle, Richard of Gloucester, 
the two young princes whom that strange 
creature is said to have smothered in the 
Tower. There are other things to be told of 
Richard ; without doubt he was intelligent 
beyond his time, and a patron of learning; 
but ever across the pages of the impartial 
historian who seeks to rehabilitate the char- 
acter of this prince, there falls the shadow of 
the malignant hunchback of Shakespeare's 
drama. 

They were an evil brood, those three 
brothers of the House of York; Edward, a 
libertine ; George of Clarence, an indolent, 
weak-minded sot; and Richard, a murderer 
who cleared his path to the throne by remov- 



IN ENGLAND. 195 

ing from it his next of kin, with, apparently, 
the coolness of a landscape gardener who 
cuts down the superfluous trees that obstruct 
a desirable view. It is the fashion with Eng- 
lish historians to attribute the immoralities 
of Charles II to his stay in France; where 
did Edward IV learn so thoroughly the same 
bad lessons? 

The memory of the ecclesiastical councils 
and the sessions of the New Testament re- 
vision committee held here are hardly suffi- 
cient to dispel the gloom of these darker as- 
sociations. Accordingly, we go out into the 
street for a breath of fresh air, and then 
across to St. Margaret's, the Parliamentary 
Church. 

Here are memorials to Caxton, Raleigh, 
Milton, and our own Phillips Brooks ; a no- 
ble gathering, no one of whom need be 
ashamed of the society in which he finds him- 
self. 

Caxton and Raleigh sleep in the church- 
yard, and so does Milton's "Late espoused 
saint," and the child who died with her, the 



i 9 6 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

characters in the one tender interlude of the 
Puritan poet's stern life. 

St. Margaret's looks a noble building, even 
under the shadow of Westminster Abbey; 
and Dean Farrar must have left it with re- 
gret, though called to Canterbury. 

We had brought letters of introduction to 
a family living in Brixton, relatives of some 
good friend of ours. When they learned 
that Princess and I were alone in London, 
they invited us, most cordially and earnestly, 
to gather up our pilgrim-robes, staves and 
scallop-shells, or their modern equivalents, 
umbrellas, hand-bags, dress-suit cases, and 
shawl-straps, and take up our abode, for the 
time that remained to us in the city, under 
their hospitable roof. 

We were introduced to no "marble halls," 
nor did we meet any members of the royal 
family or the peerage ; but we did see, in one 
of its best forms, the quiet home-life of well- 
to-do, middle-class Londoners. 

Our host, a man whose brilliant dark eyes 
and silvery hair recalled the portraits of 
Whittier, and who like our Quaker poet, 



IN ENGLAND. 197 

owed those dark eyes to a strain of Hugue- 
not blood, had been for many years in busi- 
ness in "the city ;" and now, having accumu- 
lated a modest independence, he had retired, 
to spend his declining years in comfort and 
ease. The family, like the majority of their 
neighbors, were Non-conformists in religion, 
and in politics, Liberals. As our hostess had 
kept up a regular correspondence with her 
brother in America, the entire connection, 
knew far more of the extent, population, and 
resources of the United States than any other 
English people that it has been my fortune 
to meet. 

Our host hated the conventional tall hat, 
which is the only head-gear a self-respecting 
Englishman allows himself on Sunday ; yet 
he donned it regularly, and went to his place 
in the choir of his church ; he was also a 
member of the special-service choir of St. 
Paul's, and of the Handel Choral Society of 
the Crystal Palace ; he had belonged for 
many years to the choir of Albert Memorial 
Hall. He had, however, given up his place 
in this organization because the choir was 



198 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

frequently called upon to sing when foreign 
potentates were entertained, and, as the mu- 
sical program was usually preceded by a din- 
ner lasting until eleven o'clock or later, "the 
hours were too late for a staid elderly man, 
though it was all very well when I was 
younger; so, after I'd walked home once or 
twice at three o'clock in the morning, on ac- 
count of a scarcity of cabs, I gave it up." 

The family life was peaceful and whole- 
some. I could not help wondering how many 
Americans, busines # s men, retiring from ac- 
tive life, would be content to pass their days 
as calmly and quietly as this rosy-faced Eng- 
lishman, who had passed beyond the Psalm- 
ist's limit of life; but still walked with an 
elastic step, took a deep interest in the be- 
nevolences of his church, watched the prog- 
ress of events in America and the far East, 
and laughed at a joke with all the enjoyment 
of a schoolboy. 

The number of meals daily prepared in the 
house, and the other occasions during the 
twenty-four hours when refreshments seem- 
ed necessary to the common welfare, were 



IN ENGLAND. 199 

alike appalling. We breakfasted at nine, 
dined at half-past one, took tea at half-past 
four, ate supper whenever we reached home 
after our evening expeditions; and then we 
had biscuits, lemonade and fruit every time 
we left the house or returned to it; not to 
mention cake and tea and the offer of wine 
whenever we called. 

The question, "Are you a teetotaller?" 
meets the American at every turn, if he has 
any social relations with the English; and, 
while the traveler's "teetotal" notions strike 
his entertainers as odd, he is never made in 
the least uncomfortable. I was indeed a tea- 
totaller ; for I drank more tea in those two 
weeks than in all the previous years of my 
mortal pilgrimage; and came near being a 
nervous wreck, in consequence thereof. 
There is something about an English tea- 
table, with the shining teapot smothered, 
Desdemona-like, under the cosy, the thin 
slices of bread-and-butter, the delicate 
sponge-cake and preserves, that is irresisti- 
ble. It reminds one of Miss Edgeworth, 
Mrs. Gaskell, and various other delightful 



200 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

persons who have glorified this peculiarly 
British institution; and one feels that she is 
herself a schoolgirl in short skirts and lone 
braids, and is beguiled by this illusion into 
indulging too freely in "the cup that cheers 
but not inebriates;" but which plays havoc 
with the nerves of an American spinster un- 
accustomed to its influences. Remembering 
Johnson's numberless cups of tea, I no longer 
wondered that he was sometimes irritable 
and impatient of contradiction. 

Our good friends helped us to see many 
interesting things and places. We went to 
Norwood on the top of an omnibus, a most 
delightful journey. Here we saw the tomb of 
Spurgeon, and visited the Greek cemetery. 
There is, in the heart of London, a numer- 
ous colony of Greek merchants, who bury 
their dead in the beautiful cemetery at Nor- 
wood. The little marble temples with their 
inscriptions in New Testament Greek were 
strangely far away and foreign ; yet helped 
to the realization that the beautiful Hellenic 
tongue is not even yet a dead language. 

Another day, we went through "the Tube," 



IN ENGLAND. 2 oi 

the underground electric railway running 
beneath the Thames. We came to the sur- 
face by "lift" near the Mile End Road, along 
which we made our way to the People's Pal- 
ace. This is the idea of Besant's "All Sorts 
and Conditions of Men" reduced to a work- 
ing reality. What a satisfaction for a man to 
see his helpful theories crystallize into fact, 
even during his life on earth. Sir Walter Be- 
sant does not belong to the first rank of nov- 
elists ; but he has left his mark for good upon 
his generation, and many others yet to come. 

The work done by the Beaumont trustees 
through the People's Palace is thorough and 
far-reaching. As we strolled along the wide 
street, looking at the many new buildings, 
the churches, and the Children's Hospital, 
our host said, 

"They have done a good work. I well re- 
member the time, not so very long ago, when 
it was not safe for a respectably-dressed per- 
son to walk down here, unless escorted by a 
policeman." 

A few minutes later, he added, 

"Do you notice the names on these signs? 



202 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

Mostly Jewish; they are the people who 
never miss a chance to better themselves." 

And then Princess told him what our own 
Jacob Riis has said, 

"The Jew is the leaven of the slum. At 
the first chance, he rises, and takes the slum 
with him." 

The gymnasiums were closed for the sum- 
mer vacation; but the custodian showed us 
the club rooms, the reading rooms and the 
library, where sat a goodly number of men 
enjoying the daily papers and the current 
magazines; also the playgrounds where chil- 
dren were regaining their birthright of 
health-giving, mirthful play. At last, we 
came to Queen's Hall, the great concert 
room and lecture room, where men and wo- 
men with something worth saying are invited 
to speak ; and where, on Sunday afternoons, 
the best organists of London discourse mu- 
sic to a most appreciative audience. 

The custodian spoke of the great numbers 
of Jews who came to the Palace, and the ea- 
gerness with which they availed themselves of 
all the means of improvement there afforded. 




SAMUEL JOHNSON. 



IN ENGLAND. 203 

He added his testimony to the great changes 
that had come in the neighborhood. 

From all with whom we spoke on this sub- 
ject came corroborative evidence. Our land- 
lady in Queen Square had said before we left 
her, 

"O, yes, indeed ; there's been a great 
change in East London. Some places in this 
vicinity need more attention now than White- 
chapel or Mile End Road." 

This we could easily believe ; for never 
anywhere, even in the poorest quarters of 
Naples, have I seen so many such dirty chil- 
dren as in the cross-streets and alleys of re- 
spectable Bloomsbury. 

One evening, as we rode down to the East 
India Docks, on the top of a tram, a young 
girl of perhaps twenty, to whom we address- 
ed some questions, replied, 

"O, yes, ma'am; within my memory things 
have changed here until you'd never know it 
for the same place." 

The elderly and middle-aged people talked 
with us freely and kindly ; and the young 
men who went and came during our long 



204 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

ride, were quiet and well-behaved. There is 
yet much work to do, and many conditions 
to change, but there is ground for hope of 
still better things; and steadily accumulating 
proof everywhere that what the poor need, 
and, though sometimes unconsciously, long 
for, is not charity, hut justice. When we 
learn that what we are pleased to call "the 
lower classes" are men and women of like 
passions with ourselves, just what we our- 
selves should be under the same circum- 
stances; when we meet them on that ground; 
then, slowly, hut surely, through many blun- 
ders and heartaches and much exercise of pa- 
tience on both sides, will come the reign of 
justice and good sense among mankind; and, 
with them, love and good will. This wan- 
dering about the highways and byways of a 
foreign city brings home to us very forcibly 
how much alike we all are, in essentials. 

Our host took us on various Dickens pil- 
grimages, for he is a lover of Oliver Twist, 
Barnaby Rudge and the rest of the goodly 
company of oddities that throng the pages of 
"Boz." lie pointed out to us one day, in a 



IN ENGLAND. 205 

narrow passage leading off Kenchurch street, 
a tin sign inscribed "Dombey and Son;" 1 > ti t 
we saw nothing of Florence, Walter, or little 
Paul. We also found the site of David Cop- 
perfield's warehouse near Blackfriars Bridge. 
In the Borough Road is the successor of 
Chaucer's Tabard Inn, which is the identical 
hostelry in whose courtyard we are intro- 
duced to him who in time becomes our friend 
— everybody's friend — Samuel Weller. In 
St. George's churchyard nearby, is the wall 
of the old Marshalsea prison, the scene of the 
trials 
and 
triumphs 
of 
J. Wilkins Micawber. 
We go again to the Bell Yard, to the Old 
Curiosity Shop (and buy curiosities) to 
Staple Inn and through the various streets 
that still bear the names we long ago learned 
to know and love in the row of dark green 
books standing at a convenient height on our 
shelves. It is gratifying to realize how much 
of Dickens' London geography has become 



206 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

obsolete, because of the sweeping away of 
abuses which he attacked so vigorously as to 
compel their disappearance. 

While in the Borough Road, we dropped in 
at old St. Saviour's Church, one of the most 
interesting in London. Here lie buried John 
Gower and John Howard; here, too, lies the 
dust of Edmund Shakespeare and of Mas- 
singer and Fletcher, each of whom has a 
memorial window. It seems to have been a 
church loved of the player-folk of Elizabethan 
days ; or were they buried here because of 
its proximity to the theaters, near which the 
actors doubtless lived? 

Before the altar of the ancient building, 
James I. of Scotland was married to that 
Lady Joan Beaufort whom he had watched 
so often as she walked in the gardens at 
Windsor. The parish of St. Savior's expects 
that ere long its church will be made a cathe- 
dral and divide honors with Westminster 
Abbey. 

We made visits to the National Gallery, the 
Tate Gallery, and the National Portrait Gal- 
lery, all places where one may profitably 



IN ENGLAND. 207 

spend weeks in study of the pictures. We 
took many a peep into the Guild Hall with 
its treasures of historical relics. We wander- 
ed down St. Martin's Lane and chaffered with 
the dealers in Wedgewood ware. One after- 
noon and evening we spent at the Crystal 
Palace. This is a favorite resort for middle- 
class Londoners in summer, and is well worth 
visiting. 

During a large part of the afternoon, we 
sat out of doors listening and looking on at 
a vaudeville performance. It was not special- 
ly interesting; but it was entirely harmless, 
and afforded an opportunity for the display 
of pretty costumes and much graceful posing 
and marching. There seemed to be some 
thread of plotconnecting thevarious episodes, 
but what it was I am not prepared to say, 
as no two of our company were ever able 
to agree about the matter. Princess says I 
went to sleep, and perhaps I did ; my chair 
was comfortable, the air was cool, and the 
music soothing. 

We had refreshments, of course, in the 
large main hall; and then, from the balcony, 



208 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

witnessed the evolutions of a company of 
well-trained girls on bicycles. 

The most interesting things in the Palace 
were not the seats of the vast choir and or- 
chestra, among which the great organ seems 
lost, nor the curiosities exhibited in the mid- 
dle of the hall ; but the succession of courts 
displaying in chronological order the various 
styles of architecture from that of ancient 
Nineveh to the building of modern times ; 
and in the balcony, the collection of pictures 
commemorating the deeds for which the Vic- 
toria Cross has been conferred. 

When darkness came on, we -went outside 
to look at the fireworks, a truly beautiful dis- 
play, evidently a source of great pleasure to 
the onlooking crowds. The Palace, by day, 
looks rather dull and dingy, more like a fac- 
tory than a palace ; but, seen from the ter- 
races at night when it is illuminated, and gar- 
landed outside with festoons of gas-jets under 
colored globes, it seems a fairy palace indeed. 

Among the interesting things to be seen in 
South London are the Peabody Buildings, 
model homes for workingmen ; the working- 



IN ENGLAND. 209 

men's hotels, Christ Church with its spire in 
memory of Lincoln, and Lambeth Palace. 

The American feels proud of his national- 
ity when he sees the Peabody Buildings and 
thinks of the combined good sense and good 
will that produced them. The spire of Christ 
church also causes a throb of pride. The 
homely, wise and kindly man, our "middle- 
class country's middle-class president," here 
receives due honor where once he was misun- 
derstood and ridiculed. 

Lambeth Palace, the London residence of 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, has a pictur- 
esque Gothic gate-way, and a library filled 
with choice manuscripts and interesting pic- 
tures ; but is somewhat shorn of its ancient 
glory now that the Archbishop no longer 
goes by the water-gate to his state barge on 
the Thames. Water-gates and state-barges 
are things of the long ago; and a wide 
thoroughfare now separates the palace gar- 
den wall from the river that once lapped 
against its sides. 

In the parish church hard by the Palace is 
a small window called the Peddler's Window, 
14 



2io PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

commemorating the peddler who bequeathed 
to the parish the famous acre that now makes 
so large a part of the parochial wealth. 

In connection with our visit to Lambeth 
Palace, we were told a story of Archbishop 
Temple, an incident that occurred when he 
was Head Master of Rugby School. It 
seems that Dr. Temple's rule was stern but 
just, and the lads respected while they feared 
him. On the occasion of some breach of dis- 
cipline, when it seemed likely that one of the 
lads, a poor boy, was to suffer punishment 
for a deed that he had not committed, be- 
cause he was remaining silent rather than 
bring blame upon another, a boy not con- 
cerned in the affair, but acquainted with all 
the circumstances, wrote home to his father a 
full statement of the case, adding, 

"I wish you would see or write to the Mas- 
ter about it ; for ought not to be 

punished, he had nothing to do with the af- 
fair and is keeping quiet because he doesn't 
care to tattle. Temple will make it all right 
when he knows; of course, he's a beast, but 
lie's a just beast," 



IN ENGLAND. 211 

And on that consciousness the heart of the 
schoolboy leans, when he finds the quality 
of fairness in comrade or leader. In this case 
the confidence was not misplaced. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CONCERNING ENGLISH RAILWAYS. 

For some days before leaving London, we 
were busy visiting railway offices and tourist's 
agencies, trying to determine upon the most 
direct route to the southern Cathedral towns. 
We hoped to be able to buy tickets for the 
entire journey from London to Liverpool. 
In this we failed; incidentally, however, we 
learned many things about the management 
of English railways. 

At this time the traveling public was in a 
great state of irritation over the crowded 
condition of the coaches, and the inadequate 
supply of porters at the stations of certain 
railways. The "Times" and other journals 
published daily irate communications from 
"Citizen," "Traveler," etc., wherein were re- 
lated the woes of the British tourist, his hat- 
boxes, his hold-all, his bags, bundles, um- 
brellas and hampers, and his little tin trunks 
(English "boxes"). 



IN ENGLAND. 213 

On application to the London and South- 
western Railway Co., we were furnished with 
a most formidable volume yclept a time- 
table, which after much cogitation we man- 
aged to understand. But, lo, when we had 
found the time of arrival and departure of 
certain trains which appeared promising, we 
discovered in a footnote the following state- 
ment : 

"This schedule does not mean that trains 
will leave the station at the hours named, 
only that they will not leave before those 
hours." 

I considered this a highly humorous pro- 
duction, but Princess was vexed. She is or- 
derly and punctual ; and while in the main 
good-natured, objects to starting on a jour- 
ney without some reasonable degree of cer- 
tainty as to the time when she will arrive at 
her destination. But I, even now, can not 
recall that footnote without feeling that I 
have unearthed a rich joke. 

During our progress through Southern 
England, we found that this paragraph was 
not intended as a pleasantry; was, indeed, a 



214 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

solemn statement of actual fact. When we 
were about to leave Salisbury, we hurried to 
the station in great disorder cutting short 
our luncheon in order to catch a train that 
was fabled to leave at two o'clock. After 
waiting nearly an hour, we were told by our 
consoler, the porter, that the local divinities 
had decided to make up a "h'extry," and 
thereby give an opportunity for departure to 
those unreasonable and impatient persons 
unwilling to wait longer for the express. 
The porter, with his assistant, gathered up 
our belongings and we meekly follow- 
ed them to the coach that- had been se- 
lected for us. We were informed that we 
must change cars at Templecombe (Temple- 
coom) and Evercreek, possibly also at Glas- 
tonbury; though as to this last he was not 
certain. "But," he magnanimously added, as 
Ned handed him his largesse of coppers, "ye 
can h'ahsk w'en ye git there, sir." 

When we had progressed a little way out- 
side the good city of Salisbury, we were sud- 
denly side-tracked, and had the pleasure of 
seeing the express ( ?) for which we had wait- 



IN ENGLAND. 215 

ed so long and vainly, pass by on the other 
side like the Levite of the parable. Indeed 
I doubt if even that unpleasant man could 
have been half so haughty in manner. 

We did not change at Evercreek but did 
at Glastonbury ; so much for our porter's in- 
formation. We "h'ahsked" every official who 
came within our reach during the journey, 
and no two agreed in their statements. 

One day, as we were going from Warwick 
to Kenilworth, we discovered that our train 
had suddenly stopped, with no station in 
sight. We learned that the reason for the 
delay was the heinous conduct of an Ameri- 
can in the next compartment who had enter- 
ed it without having provided himself with a 
ticket. He had hurried in, it seemed, at the 
last minute, and was willing, nay eager, to 
pay his fare; but, as this was a proceeding out- 
side the guard's experience, and he knew not 
what might be the result of such a departure, 
we were obliged to sit there while the golden 
moments slipped away, and listen to an ex- 
planation, given by our compatriot/ of the 
rebate system as practiced on American rail- 



2i6 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

ways. The explanation was entirely clear 
and rational, but utterly thrown away upon 
the guard. At last, the two effected soma 
sort of a compromise, and we moved on. 

Princess murmured. 

"Stupid ! which was worse, to hold the 
train and argue half an hour, or let that man 
pay his fare and go on?" 

Whereto I replied, 

"The latter would have been the sensible 
thing, of course, but utterly without prece- 
dent in this guard's experience; and might if 
done, have resulted in a compound fracture 
of the British Constitution." 

The American traveler always feels that he 
ought to be a missionary to British railway 
officials, and convert them from the error of 
their ways, to such an extent, at least, as 
would cause those at Lincoln to know how 
many times and where the traveler must 
"change carriages" before reaching Rugby. 

But he — or she — who makes such efforts 
spends himself for naught. "Ephraim is join- 
ed to his idols." I have listened by the half- 
hour while Miss Bradford expounded to por- 



IN ENGLAND. 217 

ters, guards and baggagemen the superior 
methods by which railroads are managed in 
the United States of America. She gave 
them much useful information, and told them 
many wholesome truths. But she might as 
the Scotch proverb has it, "hae keepit her 
breath to cool her parritch." I doubt if they 
even heard her ; certainly they gave no heed 
to her admonitions. When all is said, we 
must own that if the British public like their 
present system of traveling accommodations 
(?) they have a perfect right to enjoy it to 
the utmost. On the other hand, if we do not 
like it, we have a choice of three methods of 
procedure; to stay at home and escape it; 
to go to England, see and hear everything in- 
teresting that we can, and bear the antiquat- 
ed railway arrangements with resignation; 
or last and best, regard them as the series of 
jokes that, to an unbiased mind they certainly 
are. This last method helps to oil the ma- 
chinery and greatly lessens the friction of 
traveling. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ROYAI, WINCHESTER. 

We finally prepared a tentative itinerary 
for our tour through the south of England, 
subject to the approval of our friends and the 
inconsistencies of the weather and the rail- 
ways; and one bright morning joined Miss 
Bradford, Helen and Ned, they having re- 
turned from the Continent the previous even- 
ing, at Waterloo Station, preparatory to 
starting for Winchester. 

As soon as we saw our three fellow-travel- 
ers, we knew that their adventures in Paris 
had been of an interesting nature. We were 
tingling with curiosity; but, of course, dared 
ask no questions. 

That evening, after Princess and I had 
gone to our room in the George Inn at Win- 
chester, there came a light tap at our door; 
and in response to our "Come in," Helen en- 
tered in her pink kimona, with her dark hair 
floating over her shoulders. 



IN ENGLAND. 219 

"I knew that you were dying to hear what 
had happened in Paris," she said when Prin- 
cess had given her a chair and returned to 
her bed to curl up, like myself, among the 

pillows. 

"You had perhaps noticed that Auntie was 
a little cool to Mr. Andrus before we left 
London?" 

We nodded. 

"To spare your feelings, personal and 
cousinly, I will refrain from telling you what 
she said from time to time about Western- 
ers, and especially about young men from 
Chicago, educated at small 'inland institu- 
tions, called colleges.' As she has experi- 
enced a change of feeling, it is unnecessary to 
repeat what she has probably forgotten by 
this time." 

Princess sat bolt upright and punched her 
pillows vigorously, but said nothing. Helen 
stopped speaking and smiled roguishly at the 

fire. 

"Go on" commanded Princess at length, 
"we are consumed with curiosity." 

"Well, you know Auntie has always 



220 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

thought she could speak French. She can 
ask about 'the purple silk parasol of my 
grandmother's cousin's mother-in-law,' and 
other things of like importance, beautifully; 
but in Paris people talk about quite different 
matters and they do it rapidly. So Auntie 
developed a new theory; she gave up trying 
to speak French, which the Parisians evi- 
dently didn't understand ; she said probably 
they spoke a dialect, which wasn't like the 
language in the books. She seemed to think, 
at least she acted on that principle, that if 
she only spoke loudly enough and in very 
broken English, she could not fail to be un- 
derstood. I wish you could have heard her." 

We wished so, too, Miss Minerva shriek- 
ing in broken English must have been a 
spectacle for men and angels. 

Helen went on, "She nearly came to blows 
with one of the officials in the Louvre one 
day, because he insisted upon knowing the 
contents of a package she was carrying. She 
read him a long lecture on the beauty of 
minding one's own business; this greatly 
amused all the visitors in the gallery and be- 



IN ENGLAND. 221 

wildered the poor man, who could only shrug 
his shoulders and spread out his hands, all the 
while politely insisting, as was his duty, that 
he must know what was in that package. 

"One day when she had no money in her 
pocket, she climbed to the top of an omnibus 
without noticing that the vehicle had not 
waited for me. She was carried several 
blocks before she could make the man let her 
off. He stood on the platform and watched 
her until she met me. I imagine he thought 
she was a lunatic and 1 a careless keeper. 

"Finally, she came near being arrested for 
refusing to pay a cabman what he asked 
when he was right and she mistaken in her 
resistance. In the midst of the fracas, Mr. 
Andrus, who had came that day to a hotel 
across the street, and who like every one else, 
had had his attention attracted by the noisy 
dispute, came over, paid the cabman, satis- 
fied the policeman, and explained things to 
Auntie. 

"Since that she has hardly allowed him out 
of her sight in her waking hours ; and with 
his knowledge of the city, and his wide ac- 



222 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

quaintance with art and music students, — he 
helped us to see more of Paris in five days 
than we could have seen in as many months 
without his aid." 

So the prophecy of Princess and her wish 
had alike been fulfilled, and Ned had became 
in Miss Bradford's eyes very like a minister- 
ing angel. 

The old Saxon capital, the Caerleon of the 
Arthurian legends, is beautiful enough to be 
the center of all the interesting bits of his- 
tory and tradition that cluster about it. The 
I (ley, an ideal trout stream, clear and swift, 
with amber lights, like one of our own moun- 
tain brooks, winds at the north end of the 
town. It bends towards the old city in grace- 
ful salute, then turns away again to look af- 
ter its own multifarious business. One un- 
derstands perfectly why Walton was an en- 
thusiastic angler, even if he had never known 
the Lea. Any person with a spark of appre- 
ciation of the goods the gods provide, must 
needs "be quiet and go a-fishing" if it be his 
fortune to dwell beside this little river. 

One may follow for some time both the 



IN ENGLAND. 223 

river and the city wall; but, after a while, 
he is forced to choose between them. If he 
follow the wall, he comes at last to the noble 
buildings of Wykenham's college. They are 
ideally situated; but, despite the democratic 
motto, this college touches most Americans 
less nearly than Eton and Rugby. 

There are many delightful walks in and 
around Winchester; one may climb to the 
hill outside the gate, beyond the river, and 
see the town and its environs spread like a 
map at his feet. He may stray along the 
crooked streets, through the Butter Market 
with its graceful Gothic cross. He may take 
the southward road through the beautiful 
country to Saint Cross Hospital, whose 
buildings, substantial and quaint, seem an 
original part of the neighboring town. 

There is also the County Hall, which in- 
cludes the old Castle of Winchester, the royal 
residence of the Saxon kings, and some even 
of the early Norman ones. Inside the castle, 
there hangs on the wall, a relic in which I, for 
one, should like to believe, the so-called 
Round Table of King Arthur. It is only the 



224 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

oaken top of a large circular table; and one 
guide-book says it is not older than the time 
of King Stephen ; but the custodian assures 
his willing listeners that it dates from the 
time of Egbert, and was used as a council- 
table when Royal Winchester was the moth- 
er city of England. 

Certainly Henry VII, with a touch of ro- 
mance from his Welsh ancestry, believed in 
the table and caused to be put around it the 
iron band which has so long kept the treas- 
ured relic from falling to pieces. 

With characteristic thrift the king charged 
the expense of putting on the band and paint- 
ing the table to his good and loyal city ; and, 
accordingly, the records of Winchester bear 
witness for an outlay of thirty pounds for the 
above mentioned work, done in preparation 
for the christening of the Prince Arthur 
whose name testifies to his royal father's love 
for the legends of the blameless king. 

The table is painted in alternate segments 
of green and white, and in one segment is 
represented the king — in the robes of the 
Tudor period ; in the middle is painted the 



IN ENGLAND. 225 

Tudor rose, and the names of the knights 
are done in black-letter in the spelling of the 
fifteenth century as used by Sir Thomas Ma- 
lory. 

Below the table, in the wall, is a contriv- 
ance after the pattern of a horse's ear, where- 
by, we are told, William the Conqueror, him- 
self unseen, was wont to listen to the conver- 
sation of those gathered in the Hall. 

The grounds of St. Brede's Abbey, now 
the city park, afford a most picturesque 
lounging-place for one's idle hours. This is 
certainly a wise and beneficent use of an old 
monastic foundation. It must certainly be 
well for a community to spend its evenings 
and holidays in a spot so full of quiet beauty. 

Last of all, there is the Cathedral. Really, 
one could ask nothing better than be allowed 
to take up his abode in Winchester for an 
entire summer, and during that period forget 
that such things as railways exist. In case 
of an unexpected attack of nostalgia, South- 
ampton and her steamship docks lie conven- 
iently near. 

The noble avenue of lime trees leading in 
15 



226 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

a semi-circular sweep to the front of the 
Cathedral forms a fitting prelude to the in- 
terior of the building. As a whole the ex- 
terior is somewhat disappointing. At first 
sight the effect is squatty; but the vast 
length and breadth of the massive pile, and 
its stately west front, end by leaving upon 
the mind an impression of grandeur and sta- 
bility. 

For a building apparently so low, when 
seen from without, it produces an effect of 
wonderful height when one enters. This is 
dounbtless due both to the character of the 
roof and the dignified simplicity of the clus- 
tered pillars, which sweep in an unbroken 
line, past triforium gallery and clerestory 
from floor to ceiling. 

In some respects, Winchester Cathedral is 
even more interesting than Westminster Ab- 
bey. Its memorials to greatness are fewer, 
made with more discrimination; and, there- 
fore, have their full effect upon eye and 
mind. 

We happened to arrive near service-time, 
and some official beguiled us into the choir. 



IN ENGLAND. 227 

Here we admired the beautiful carving of 
stalls and canopies and that miracle of white 
stone, the reredos; and, incidentally, we 
watched the evolutions of a functionary with 
a silver-headed stick, who between readings 
and chantings escorted various ecclesiastics 
to and from their seats. The service was 
mumbled, the singing was poor; and a man 
in skirts is a ludicrous object, especially when 
the skirts are just long enough for the man 
to kick them up with his heels when he walks. 
If robes and draperies are to be a part of a 
clergyman's dress, why not have them grace- 
ful and dignified? Such reading as we heard 
here is calculated to make one think favor- 
ably of Sir Roger de Coverly's plan for equip- 
ping a clergyman. 

When we made our escape at the close of 
the service, we rejoiced in the feast before us. 
The Cathedral, having been long a-building, 
presents almost every variety of Gothic dec- 
oration, from the round Norman arches of 
the eastern portion to the perpendicular 
windows of the west end. 

Such different persons are buried here as 



228 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

William Rufus — if indeed he be — William 
Longsword, Jane Austen, and Izaak Walton. 

The author of the book on Winchester in 
Bell's Cathedral Series, calls attention to 
the fact that there is in the north aisle a 
monument to "J ane Austen, the novelist, 
youngest daughter of the rector of Steven- 
ton in Hampshire," and with this brief no- 
tice dismisses the subject. One somehow 
gathers that in this gentleman's eyes Jane 
Austen's relationship to the rector of Steven- 
ton is of greater importance than her re- 
nown as a novelist, of which evidently he has 
heard but dim rumors. One- can fancy a 
twinkle in the lady's eye, if she could read 
this notice; for she ever appreciated a good 
joke. I wonder if the slower-witted neigh- 
bors did not sometimes feel a trifle uncom- 
fortable in the presence of the rector's 
slightly satirical daughter, knowing that she 
saw very clearly through all their little shifts 
and shams; feeling vaguely that she found 
something amiss with them, though they did 
not know what it could be. 

If one desires real history, if he wishes to 



IN ENGLAND. ~ 229 

see middle-class life in well-to-do country 
neighborhoods in the closing years of the 
eighteenth century and the beginning of the 
nineteenth, let him study Jane Austen. Here 
are genuinely historical novels, though there 
rings through them no clash of swords or 
clank of spurs, and not one of her respectable 
clergymen or substantial country squires was 
ever heard to say "Splendor of God" or "By 
my halidome." Miss Austen wrote of life 
as she knew it, and might have inscribed 
upon each of her title-pages the words of that 
tiresome prig, pins Aeneas, "All of which I 
saw, and a great part of which I was." 

Not far away from the novelist's monu- 
ment stands the old Norman font which is 
one of Winchester's treasures. Upon the 
sides of this irregularly quadrilateral vessel is 
carved the legend of St. Nicholas and the 
three dowerless maidens. The carving is 
done in the usual naive style of the unknown 
decorators who in olden days covered so 
many square feet of stone with the legends 
of saint and martyr, giving to the common 
people, in characters which they could un- 
derstand, both Bibles and books of devotion. 



230 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

This series of miracles inspires great re- 
spect for the common sense and benevolence 
of the saint in question. Since, in those days, 
it was a great calamity for a young woman 
to pass her twentieth birthday unwedded ; 
and since she could not hope to marry to any 
advantage if she were dowerless, what kinder 
and more practical deed could good St. Nich- 
olas have done than this of providing three 
penniless maidens with the means of becom- 
ing respectable and respected matrons in the 
shortest possible time? 

One cares little for William Rufus or 
Longsword, or even poor Queen Mary's 
chair, when it is possible to stand by the 
tomb of Jane Austen, or in the chapel of 
Silkstede at the far end of the church, to 
read the inscriptions upon the stone that cov- 
ers the gentle Angler. All who are fond of 
tramps by wood and stream, all who love the 
ripple of brooks, the song of birds, the color 
and perfume of wild-flowers, must have a 
kindly feeling for Walton, even though ad- 



IN ENGLAND. 231 

verse circumstances have prevented their 
committing his masterpiece to memory. 

The epitaphs on the tombstones in the 
Cathedral close are interesting reading; and 
among them there is one that is so full of 
truly Saxon and bucolic spirit that it will bear 
transcription here : 

In Memory of 

Thomas Thetcher. 

a grenadier in the North Regt. of Hants Militia, who 

died of a violent Fever contracted by drinking Small 

Beer when hot the 12th of May, 1764, Aged 26 years. 

In grateful remembrance of whose universal good 
will toward his Comrades, this Stone is placed here at 
their expence as a small testimony of their regard and 
concern. 

Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadier, 
Who caught his death by drinking cold small Beer. 
Soldiers, be wise from his untimely fall, 
And when yere hot, drink strong or not at all. 
This memorial being decayed was restored by the 
Officers of the Garrison, A. D. 1781. 

An honest soldier never is forgot 
Whether he died by Musket or Pot. 
This stone was placed by the North Hants Militia 
when disembodied at Winchester on 26th April, 1802, 
in consequence of the original stone being destroyed. 



232 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

One can readily see how much importance 
is attached to the solemn warning conveyed 
by the untimely fate of Thomas, since the 
original stone has been twice replaced by a 
new one. Further evidence to the same pur- 
port is afforded by the fact that the writer 
who dismisses Jane Austen's tomb with such 
scant notice, copies in full the inscription 
upon this monument. 

It was at Winchester that we first observ- 
ed that while Aunt Minerva grew daily more 
friendly to our cousin, Helen seemed more 
and more to avoid him, so that he scarcely 
ever had an opportunity to speak to her. 

"Don't worry, dear," said Princess to me. 
"It will be all right. While Aunt Minerva 
was in the opposition, it was an interesting 
game to dodge and get ahead of her. But 
now that obstacles are removed and she re- 
alizes how much in earnest Ned is, the little 
girl is frightened. And, really, she has 
known him such a short time, it is only natur- 
al that she should put him off as long as pos- 
sible. I feel like helping her, now. It won't 
hurt Mr. Ned to wait and wonder for a time; 



IN ENGLAND. 233 

it takes a great deal to discourage him, re- 
member. Besides, it will be his "innings" 
again when we are on board the steamer ; he 
told me yesterday that he had engaged his 
passage on the Berneland, with some diffi- 
culty, as it was so late. He'll have ten days 
free from Aunt Minerva and in general from 
me. You'll have to be the discreet duenna." 



CHAPTER X. 

SALISBURY. 

Salisbury, like Winchester, is beautiful for 
situation. Here, also, the Ifly skirts the 
town and renews its invitation to go a-gypsy- 
ing to all and sundry who watch its dimpling 
smiles and give ear to its seductive voice. 

Of course, the chief attraction is the Ca- 
thedral whose lofty spire can be seen for 
miles in all directions. Every cathedral has 
its own especial beauty; and in trying to 
think which is the favorite, one recalls Ferdi- 
nand's boyish confession: 

"For several virtues 
Have I liked several women." 

Salisbury Cathedral has many beauties, 
but chief among them, and eclipsing all the 
rest, is the spire, exactly right, not an inch 
too high or too low, one of the few perfectly 
satisfying objects in a sometimes unsatisfac- 
tory world. 



IN ENGLAND. 235 

Hard by Salisbury is the little village of 
Bemerston, with its tiny, quaint church, whose 
rector, once on a time, was Holy George 
Herbert. The modest building, overgrown 
with ivy and shadowed by evergreens, is lov- 
ed of those who know well the verses, often 
commonplace, sometimes whimsical, but 
sometimes also, as in "Sunday" and the "Pul- 
ley," exquisitely beautiful, of the Country 
Parson. 

He is as sweet and wholesome among the 
loud-voiced royalist singers of his day as a 
sprig of delicate lavender; a fitting com- 
panion for Jeremy Taylor and that Puritan 
malignant at whom both clergymen would 
doubtless have looked askance, John Milton. 

Not far away in another direction is Ames- 
bury, to whose legendary convent, Guinevere 
retired to mourn her sins and learn to value 
justly the great heart, that all unnoted of her, 
had beat so steadily beside her for years. 

Near to Salisbury, also, is Stonehenge. 
The walk thereto, through Old Sarum, is 
pleasant, like all rural walks in England, 
whether in sun or shower, provided the cows 



236 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

remain considerately in the background. 
However, on this pilgrimage, I was protect- 
ed by all my companions, who kindly refrain- 
ed from laughing at my fears, a style of be- 
havior which I appreciate highly, having 
often met with another variety. It is humili- 
ating enough to scramble over the nearest 
fence at sight of a cow — warranted inoffen- 
sive — without having one's feelings further 
lacerated by the jeers of the uncomprehend- 
ing. 

Stonehenge is mysterious and awe-inspir- 
ing, both because of its measureless antiquity 
and because despite all theories, no one 
knows for what it was intended. Each visi- 
tor has therefore the privilege of calling the 
circle of stones whatever seems good to him, 
and of assigning to it any date previous to 
Caesar's conquest, without fear of successful 
contradiction. 

But to Salisbury and its environs we must 
bid farewell ; for southward lies King Ar- 
thur's country, the Vale of Avalon. 



CHAPTER XL 

WELLS AND GLASTONBURY. 

Safe hidden in Avalon's island-vale 

He sleeps, the king who knew nor shame nor fear; 

The blameless knight who finds no mate or peer 

In song or legend, history, or tale 

Told by the winter-fire, while night-winds wail, 

To eager youth and age. Long by the mere 

Lonely and sad might pace Sir Bedivere, 

On the white sands, and watch the lessening sail 

That bore his lord away. He comes no more. 

But he shall live again in song and rhyme, 

Shall be a well-loved man for many a day, 

As long as ocean's wave beats England's shore, 

Till rolling cycles bring an end to time 

And pain and loss forever pass away. 

We took up our quarters at Wells in a tiny 
hotel called the Clarence, and the following 
was the occasion and manner of our going 
thereto. We met one day in London a lady 
who had been our fellow-passenger across 
the Atlantic. From Liverpool and Chester 
she had gone to Bath and Wells, and was 



238 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

making her way in reverse over the route 
that we had laid out for ourselves. She gave 
us several bits of valuable information and 
the address of a house in Jubilee Terrace, 
Wells, where she had been very comfortable. 

It was a hot, uncomfortable summer after- 
noon when we arrived at Wells. We found 
in charge of the station one old man, very 
deliberate of speech and movement; and no- 
where in sight was anything in the least re- 
sembling a cab. We made inquiries for Ju- 
bilee Terrace. The Ancient Mariner of an 
official " 'Ad never 'eard of such a place, 
mum." To his tender mercies we at length 
left our baggage and set forth to seek this 
Land of Promise. 

From every person of whom we inquired 
we received an answer, varying slightly in 
form, but equivalent in substance to that 
given by the station-master. Evidently no 
one in those parts had ever heard of Jubilee 
Terrace. We began to think we must have 
dreamed about the place; though as Ned 
observed it was remarkable that five dif- 



IN ENGLAND. 239 

ferent individuals should have had an identi- 
cal dream. 

At last, seeing on a neighboring fence a 
painted hand pointing toward the legend 
"The Clarence, Temperance Hotel," we de- 
cided to wander no -more for a time, at least, 
through the white sand that does duty for 
soil at Wells, but seek the Clarence at once, 
(incongruous name for a Temperance hotel.) 
Our good angels must have had a share in 
that decision. We were offered bed-rooms 
and a sitting-room for three shillings a day 
each; and were furthermore told by our 
hostess that she hoped we would make free 
use of the tiny piano in the sitting-room, and 
the books on the shelves opposite. We after- 
ward found that the books contained much 
valuable matter in the way of local history 
and legend. 

As soon as we had agreed with our hostess 
on accommodations and terms she called in a 
boy from the neighborhood to go with us 
and bring back our luggage. Leaving Miss 
Bradford and Princess to recuperate in their 
respective rooms, Ned, Helen, and I return- 



2 4 o PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

ed to the station with the boy and his wheel- 
barrow, a vehicle of a size altogether dispro- 
portionate to that of the homunculus who fur- 
nished its motive power. 

Arrived at the station, we helped the lad to 
pile the larger articles upon the wheelbarrow, 
and ourselves gathered up hang-bags, shawl- 
straps and umbrellas ; then the procession re- 
formed. There are neither sidewalks nor 
pavements in this part of the town. Ac- 
cordingly, falling in behind the barrow and 
the boy, we trudged once more over the 
sandy way that led to the Clarence to rest, 
hot water, and supper. 

Such a supper as we had ! I have eaten 
more elaborate meals; but never, outside a 
camp in the Adirondack^, one that tasted so 
good. I do not now recall the bill of fare ; 
but have an impression that it consisted of 
nectar and ambrosia, and ended with a 
draught from the Fountain of Youth. 

Here we abode for several days, and re- 
freshed ourselves with wanderings along the 
moat that surrounds the bishop's palace-yard. 
This is a charming place of resort. One 



IN ENGLAND. 241 

comes first to the clear green water on which 
white-plumed swans are floating; and under 
the shade of the limes, one may sit and dream 
away many a pleasant hour. One may also 
ramble along the banks of the moat, still 
shadowed by the fragrant limes, past the gar- 
den, and back near the wells — or springs — 
that give the city its name, to the draw- 
bridge. This one may cross, and, ringing 
at the gate, find himself admitted by a per- 
son in sober livery, who shows strangers 
about the house, the lovely wild-looking gar- 
den, and the courtyard. 

In the garden was held the so-called trial 
of Whiting, last abbot of Glastonbury, whom 
Henry VII, on charge of treason, first dis- 
possessed of the abbey and then hanged, 
finishing his thorough work in these parts 
by causing the oldest monastic buildings in 
England to be destroyed in an unsuccessful 
search for the treasures which the monks 
were supposed to have hidden therein. 

A part of the palace itself is a tower whose 
predecessor was destroyed in 1703, by a 
storm still referred to as "the great storm." 

16 



242 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

It was this manifestation of nature's wrath of 
which Addison made use in his much-dis- 
cussed simile regarding the angel guiding 
the whirlwind. 

In the courtyard grows a gnarled, twisted 
shrub, an offshoot from the Holy Thorn of 
Glastonbury, which, we are assured, really 
does blossom in December. It is like, yet 
unlike, the English hawthorn, and is un- 
doubtedly of foreign origin. The dwellers 
hereabouts accounts for its second blooming 
by the mildness of the winters and the shel- 
tered position of the shrub. 

The two churches, St. Cuthbert's and the 
Cathedral, give character to the little city; 
and in no other English cathedral have we 
seen such elegance and richness in the vest- 
ment of clergy and choir as at Wells. 

The Cathedral itself one remembers chiefly 
for the peculiar appearance of the inverted 
black marble arches in the choir. There is 
also a delightful bit of carving, a representa- 
tion of Jonah and the whale, whether before 
or after the man's three days' sojourn in the 
monster is not recorded. They appear to 



IN ENGLAND. 243 

be on the most friendly terms. The whale 
is standing on its head, with its tail curled 
engagingly over its back, while the refractory 
prophet, who is considerably taller than 
Leviathan is long, leans carelessly with his 
elbow on the part of the creature that in 
this work of art is most elevated. (Ignorance 
of comparative anatomy causes me to refrain 
from trying to name that part of the sea- 
monster's body which serves as support for 
the disappointed traveler.) The composition 
of this work, including Jonah's attitude and 
expression leads the beholder to suppose that 
the gentleman knew he was having his pic- 
ture taken. 

The Cathedral close is rather dreary, ow- 
ing to the almost entire absence of grass, 
the soil here, as elswhere in the town, being 
a fine white sand. The nature of the soil 
confirms the statements of both tradition and 
geology, by bearing witness to the fact that 
this part of England was once covered by an 
arm of the sea, leaving Glastonbury and its 
vicinity an island; "the island-valley of 
Avilion," 



244 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

Even yet one sees, loaded upon the trains 
that come and go at the little stations, bar- 
rels of apples, tubs of butter, and boxes of 
cheese, stamped "Avalon." One look at the 
magic word annihilates time and change, and 
takes us back fourteen centuries to stand 
upon the shore with bold Sir Bedivere, 
watching the barge with Arthur and the 
three queens fade into mist, while 

"On the mere the wailing died away." 

It is a pleasant drive over hill and dale 
from Wells to Glastonbury. The old village 
straggles in various directions from the 
Market Square, near which we find our way 
through a court and a high gate into the 
abbey grounds. 

The sloping meadows are rich and green, 
and the sheep feed on the hillsides. Here 
and there, parties of picnickers sit under the 
trees eating prosaic lunches; and, rather 
forlorn and lonely save for their kindly cov- 
ering of ivy, we find the few remains of one 
of the most interesting buildings in England. 
Scarcely anywhere else has the destruction 



IN ENGLAND. 245 

of a monastery been so complete. Far apart 
as they were, both Furness and Glastonbury 
were involved in the rising against Henry, 
after the passage of the edict abolishing 
monasteries; but though Furness aroused 
the royal anger and suffered the royal ven- 
geance, the work of destruction was not so 
thorough because its treasures were more 
easily found. 

On a little slope behind the fallen chancel, 
grows the Holy Thorn. The shrub was cut 
down by some overzealous person when the 
Abbey was destroyed; but, springing up 
again from the roots, it still remains, with 
wiry, twisted branches, and leaves few and 
small, the patriarch of the domain. 

Above the Abbey grounds, rises in the 
near distance the rounded top of Glastonbury 
Tor, whereon the Abbot Richard Whiting 
was hanged; and whence one has a view for 
miles around of this beautiful storied coun- 
tryside, as fair and winsome as the legends 
that cluster so thickly about it. 



CHAPTER XII. 

HOMEWARD BOUND. 

We had thought of devoting a few days to 
Wales on our way back to Liverpool ; but we 
lingered about Wells and Glastonbury for 
nearly a week, and awoke suddenly one 
morning to the realization that in two days 
our steamer would sail. Accordingly, there 
was nothing left for us but to transfer our 
belongings, by hand and wheelbarrow, from 
the Clarence to the station, and take the train 
for Bristol. As it had begun -to rain by the 
time we reached the Queen City, we decided 
to go directly on to Liverpool and rest there 
for a day before sailing. 

It is usually true that passengers home- 
ward bound are far less lively and social 
than when setting out upon a European tour. 
They are, as a rule, tired and in a hurry to 
be at home once more, and fewer entertain- 
ments are planned. So it was on board the 
Berneland. 



IN ENGLAND. 247 

Miss Minerva, of course, took to her berth 
from the start. Princess kept up her cour- 
age for a day or two, and then retired, tem- 
porarily, from active life. I read or slept on 
deck in my steamer-chair, while Ned and 
Helen sat near me chatting, took long con- 
stitutionals, played shuffle-board, or teased 
me about my inactivity. 

They were very quiet, Ned did not joke 
much, but seemed grave and earnest, some- 
times almost troubled. Helen was, as Prin- 
cess said, "beautifully cunning," and I watch- 
ed her with interest and admiration. 

The night before our landing, we three 
were sitting on the deck in the moonlight, 
when I suddenly realized that my two com- 
panions had been silent for a long time. We 
were the only persons on deck, as most of the 
passengers were below arranging their bag- 
gage for "inspection" the next day. 

With some remark about "getting out of 
the wind," I moved over toward the bow 
and settled myself in some one's vacant deck 
chair. With the obtuseness common to per- 
sons in their state, both failed to notice that 



248 PRINCESS AND PILGRIM 

there was a head wind that blew my veil 
about and almost carried away my rugs. 

I remained in this airy position until I was 
chilled to the bone, and then started to go 
below. 

As I passed my two friends I heard Ned 
say gently, 

"So then, we shall come back next summer 
and go over all this ground again, without 
Aunt Minerva." 

I went swiftly down to the state-room 
which I shared with Princess and the instant 
I entered that young woman cried out, wav- 
ing the novel she had been reading, 

"You needn't waste words in telling me. 
I know all about it. Your face speaks for 
you. ,, 

Aunt Minerva visited Ned and Helen in 
their Chicago home last winter, and Princess 
and I were invited there also. The good 
lady is learning by slow degrees that quite an 
important part of our country lies west of 
the Connecticut River. 

THE END. 



THE WORLD 
DESTROYER 



BY "HORACE 'MANN" 

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PRINCESS AND 
PILGRIM 
IN ENGLAND 



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